Opening the doors to civil rights
The Human Rights Counter helps enfranchise citizens in northeastern Brazil
Written by Bruno Galba Photos by Christian Cravo

Manoel Jesus dos Santos, 73, has spent most of his life working on cocoa and manioc plantations in rural areas near the town of Presidente Tancredo Neves, in the Southern Lowlands of Bahia. Orphaned at the age of 12, he never went to school. That may be why he grew up to be a shy, silent man. When he does decide to talk, he never says more than absolutely necessary. “He’s a country guy, you know? He’s always been that way. Real quiet,” explains his daughter, Sileuza Maria de Jesus, 33, who acts as her father’s spokesperson.

While he lived far from the center of town, making a living from what the land provided and only dealing with people he knew well, Manoel never paid attention to the importance of having civil documents, or bothered to ask what those bits of laminated paper (ID cards) were good for. “He only realized that he needed all that when he came down with a mouth disease,” says Sileuza.

Manuel has been suffering from inflamed lips for four years, and he still has no medical diagnosis for his symptoms. He has difficulty speaking and feeding himself, but he couldn’t get treatment at a National Health Service clinic in all that time because he didn’t even have a birth certificate. “The doctor said I could only get help if I had the right papers. So we had to start from scratch, over there at the Counter.”

Manoel’s situation was straightened out with the help of the Human Rights Counter, a social project that is part of the Program for the Regional, Integrated and Sustainable Development of the Southern Lowlands (PDRIS). An Odebrecht Foundation initiative, the Rights Counter is supported by the State of Bahia, the Bahia State Justice Tribunal, the Federal Government’s Special Department for Human Rights and Bradesco, a major Brazilian bank. “The main objective is to facilitate access to legal rights and ensure that people see themselves as fully enfranchised citizens. Providing them with their basic civil documents is just the first step,” explains Adriana Abreu, who coordinates the Human Rights Counter in Presidente Tancredo Neves, which also informs people how to get access to income transfer programs (such as the Family Grant), helps resolve family and business disputes using mediation techniques, and officializes land deeds. “We were amazingly happy when he got his birth certificate. And it happened so fast,” recalls Sileuza. With all his documents in hand, Manoel was finally able to get medical care and was referred to the state capital, Salvador, for more tests.

In Presidente Tancredo Neves, 70% of the population lives in the rural area, and nearly one-third of residents are unable to read or write. Most of these people are disenfranchised because they are unaware of their basic civil rights, and when they do learn about them, they find them hard to exercise because they lack information and get tangled up in red tape.

For Geneton Gomes da Silva, 61, this situation is all-too familiar. A former truck driver, he lost his vision last year due to a stroke, and can no longer work. “I didn’t know what to do. I spent months asking for help, because I couldn’t earn a living any more,” he says. He finally managed to get a disability pension with the help of the Human Rights Counter. Now he receives BRL 240 a month, which is not very much, but enough to pay for his food and medicine. “This little salary was my salvation. If I could, I’d give the people at the Counter the world’s biggest present,” he concludes enthusiastically.

Although she is gratified by the positive response from the residents of Presidente Tancredo Neves, Adriana Abreu makes it clear that everyone the Counter helps gets nothing more than they are legally entitled to. “Every time we help someone, we make a point of informing each citizen that they have legal rights, and no one is doing them any favors. It is our duty to be
efficient and cordial, but we also encourage people to demand the same respect wherever they go.” Six thousand people like Geneton have received legal counseling at the Counter.

The fact that Presidente Tancredo Neves is one of Bahia’s neediest towns does not mean that the rest of the Southern Lowlands does not share its problems. “We want to reach out and help all the communities in this region and make life better for everyone,” says Francisco Pereira, the Rights Counter’s lawyer in the town of Taperoá. The unit also provides its services to residents of four neighboring municipalities: Cairu, Ituberá, Igrapiúna and Nilo Peçanha.

“Our work is basically very simple: we help the State carry out its responsibility to its citizens by giving them access to their basic rights,” says Francisco. Since it opened in October 2002, the Taperoá Rights Counter has provided assistance to over 16,000 people.

Despite the large number of people it has helped, there are still many residents of far-flung and hard-to-reach places who have yet to benefit from the Counter’s services, so the Traveling Rights Counter was created with them in mind. A mobile version of the conventional Human Rights Counter, it is headed by attorney and legal director Denise Silveira. Jatimane and Boitaraca, two former maroon settlements – villages that were originally established by escaped slaves – were the first to receive a visit from the Traveling Counter in January of this year. Cut off from the world by the Atlantic Forest, these quiet, rustic communities are at least 27 km from the center of the town of Nilo Peçanha. Public transportation only stops there once a day. “Including bus fares and food, we spend a week’s wages on one trip into town, and we aren’t always able to get the papers we need,” says Nivaldira do Amparo, 37. Like most other residents of Jatimane she earns a living by extracting piassava. “The Counter makes life much easier for us. We don’t have to go to them. They come to us,” says Nivaldira, who seized the opportunity to obtain ID cards for herself and her two daughters.

Although it has not yet reached the entire region, the Human Rights Counter has already shown its potential. Establishing a culture of citizenship that ensures that people get their basic civil rights can help realize the dream of building a more just and less unequal society – an essential requisite for putting the Southern Lowlands on the track of development.