May 2, 2024 at 00:02
Rio City Hall was fined more than R$2 billion for not clearing the waiting list of children for a place in municipal daycare centers. The fine was imposed by the 1st. Court of Children, Youth and the Elderly, in a Public Civil Action (ACP) initiated by the Public Ministry in 2009, with the participation of the Public Defender’s Office of Rio de Janeiro as an assistant. The amount will be allocated to the Municipal Fund for Children’s Rights.
Accepted by the Court of Justice of Rio de Janeiro (TJRJ), in 2009, the ACP determined the enrollment of all children up to six years of age in the municipal education network, setting a deadline of 90 days for compliance with the decision, under penalty of daily fine equivalent to R$300.00 per child.
Since the sentence became final, on 04/15/2009, the amount of the fine has accumulated. The City Hall, which claims to be trying to implement what was decided, can still appeal the decision.
Based on waiting list numbers provided by the City Hall itself, DPRJ intends to evaluate the possibility of appealing to increase the value of the fine which, from 2010 to today, would reach the amount of R$ 25,921,955,259.64.
In the decision, judge Lysia Maria Mesquita says that there is a “dire picture” and a “martyrdom of thousands of children who, during these years, yearn for the realization of their right to full access to early childhood education by obtaining a place in a daycare center” . Despite this, as the number of vacancies increased, the fine was reduced.
More than 15 thousand waiting
At the end of the 2023 school year, there were still 12,394 children aged zero to six years waiting for places in the full day, and 2,911 in the partial day, according to data from the city hall itself.
Public defender Rodrigo Azambuja highlights that DPRJ has carried out annual efforts to enroll students in daycare and preschool places.
_ Year after year we serve thousands of people seeking access to early childhood education. Omission directly harms children, who do not go to school and lose opportunities to develop, receiving adequate pedagogical stimuli and care. And also those responsible, mostly women, prevented from entering the job market. Therefore, we are considering appealing, so that this fine can be increased. Our idea is for it to be used in projects for the early childhood education of children in Rio _ , explains the defender.
