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“In emergency situations, children and women are the most likely to be abused and exploited,” explains Halim Antônio Girade, coordinator of UNICEF’s emergencies area in Brazil. “People in this group are the first to lose their rights in extreme conditions, as well as the elderly, who must also receive priority care”. An incident that illustrates this problem well is Hurricane Katrina, which flooded the city of New Orleans, USA, in 2005. In the shelters, even though they were crowded with people, many women suffered sexual abuse. In countries with civil wars, it is common to train children to join the guerrillas. To maintain the rights of this group of people, theoretically more fragile and dependent, there is the Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in States of Emergency and Armed Conflict, created by the UN in 1974 – the text is reinforced by the Convention on Human Rights. da Criança, 1989. In Brazil, the priority in emergency situations is always children, adolescents and pregnant women – for carrying a child in the womb. Only then is it the turn of women and the elderly.
EXCHANGE EXCHANGE When tragedy has many victims, priorities can change.
In major earthquakes, preference is given to assisting those most at risk of death, regardless of whether they are men, women or children. When depressurization takes place on planes, adults must wear oxygen masks and only then put them on children.
Illustration: André Valente