THE CASE OF THE EMPLOYEES AT THE SANTO ANTÔNIO DE JESUS FACTORY AND THEIR FAMILYS VS. BRAZIL: AN ANALYSIS OF THE JUDGMENT DELIVERED BY THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS EXPOSED TO CHILD LABOR

Authors

• Patricia Figueiredo Cardona Silveira
• Maria Augusta Perez Strelow

Abstract

From a historical point of view, the rights of children and adolescents were only prioritized in Brazil after the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and with the advent of the Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA), which, by recognizing and ratifying the Integral Protection Theory, lead to deep transformations regarding the concept of “child” and “adolescent” and their recognition as subjects of rights. On an international level, the Integral Protection Theory was recognized after the 1959 Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Child, and was strengthened by the Convention on the Rights of the Children in 1989. However, the lack of monitoring of these rights is still common, proven, therefore, by the current exploitation of child labor. So much so, that in 1998 a Fireworks Factory in Santo Antônio de Jesus, in the State of Bahia, Brazil, exploded, killing 64 people, including 22 local child workers. The case was submitted to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) on September 19th, 2018, and the Court handed down its ruling on July 15th, 2020. In this article, it is intended to analyze the measures established in the decision handed down by the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights in the Case, highlighting whether there was the due observance of guaranteeing the rights of children and adolescents. The text explains the evolution of the child labor laws in Brazil, the concept of children at a national and international level, the dimensions of the legal guarantees of the rights of children and adolescents in Brazil, as well as analyses the specific case that occurred in Brazil and was submitted to the IACHR. The deductive method, bibliographic review and case study methods are used.