On 23 July 1993, off-duty policemen opened fire on a group of street children who were sleeping outside one of Rio de Janeiro's most prominent landmarks--the Church of Our Lady of the Candelária. The incident became known as the Candelária Massacre and it roused the people of Rio to the streets in protest. Shortly before the shootings, the policemen picked up three boys and took them off in their car to be shot elsewhere. One of them, Wagner dos Santos, survived and his survival altered the political landscape of Brazil. This book tells his story--growing up in Rio's orphanages and gangland favelas; being shot during the massacre then being shot again a year later in attempt to silence his testimony; and being forced into exile for his own safety.

According to UN research data, by 2030 half of the world's population will be living in slums. Meanwhile, in Durban, residents of Forman and Kennedy Road settlements risk arrest and police violence to protest forced eviction and demand clean drinking water and sanitation. The statistics are not supposed to talk back. This issue of Mute, largely sparked by Mike Davis' claim that in the megaslums Muhammad and the Holy Ghost have superceded Marx, considers another view of the world's burgeoning 'naked cities'. Where the populace are refugees without rights or basic amenities, are new forms of political action emerging? Texts by: Amita Baviskar, Iain Boal, Anna Dezeuze, Michael Edwards, Melanie Gilligan, Anthony Iles, Demetra Kotouza, Penny Koutrolikou, Josaphat Robert Large, Félix Morisseau-Leroy, Kevin Pina, Richard Pithouse, Benedict Seymour and Rachel Weber

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Psychology - Social Psychology, grade: 66, Nottingham Trent University, language: English, abstract: On 23 July 1993, at night, a group of men fired on a group of over 50 street children who were sleeping in the surrounding area of the Candelária Church, in Rio de Janeiro city centre. Five children and one young adult were killed almost immediately, three others were kidnapped with fatal consequences for two of them. The remaining survived a shot on his face as the gang had left him for dead. Taking in sum, seven children and one young adult where killed in this episode. However the disgrace for the survivors did not stop that night, it is believed that 39 out of the children who used to sleep in Candelária by that time have died in a violent way (AI, 2003). This butchery was carried out by “death squads”, which mainly involved members of the Military Police of Rio, that is, those who are supposed to protect the civilians. Its “origin”, in words of the accused me, was some stones thrown at a police car. The Candelária slaughter has also become famous for being the first time that a Brazilian policeman is found guilty of murdering a street child (Csillag, 1996) In the following pages I will try to explain the general situation of street children, and why they exist in Brazil, while making references to how psychological and criminological theories can explain their situation. However, first I will define “what” a street child is, and what are they major concerns [...]

This book lays bare the received truths about the lives of Brazilian street children.

This reader introduces a number of important viewpoints central to social constructionism and charts the development of social constructionist thought.

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