Analysis of the performance of public policies in Brazil to cope with sexual violence against children and adolescents

This article presents an analysis of the confrontation of the State to act against sexual violence against children and adolescents, with a common name to the terms children and adolescents, with the objective of discussing public policies. Efforts are concentrated on the legal and regulatory aspects for sustainability and implementation of public policy programs in the Brazilian state. Initially, consideration was given to the definitions and concepts of public policies based on the main doctrines and researchers on the topic, such as Wildasky (1979); Maria Paula Bucci (2006), guidelines for making political decisions are added in the structuring and formulation of concrete actions, as indicated by Enrique Saraiva (2006). Then, it dialogues with the list of the main public policies arising from the action of the Brazilian state, listing the main ones: Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA) through Law No. 8,069 of July 13, 1990; the creation of the National Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents (CONANDA) in 2000, among other programs in the following years, including the National Plan to Combat Child and Youth Violence (PNEVSCA), the Integrated Actions Program and References for Confronting Child and Youth Violence in the Brazilian Territory (PAIR) and the Sentinela Program, which constituted a set of social assistance measures to assist children and adolescents who are victims of sexual exploitation. In addition, it discussed the international conventions adopted by the United Nations (UN) for the rights of children and adolescents, as well as considerations about the indicators of sexual violence against them. Finally, it was concluded that the National Plan to Combat Violence against Children and Adolescents in the Brazilian case was important as a policy outlined and implemented in its different phases as a cycle of public policies, and that despite the progress, the current perspectives are outlined by the state as incipient and without the necessary resources as required. In this sense, the state’s policy focuses precisely on responding to various situations of violence in the context of social vulnerability.