7. Who has access to Saint Monica’s Home?

We can divide the beneficiaries of Saint Monica’s Home in three groups:

1. Young girls and adolescents (between 7 and 18 years old), residents principally in Ceara Cove, who are victims of abuse and sexual exploitation and/or at great risk. El Saint Monica’s Home is their house of refuge.
2. Young girls and adolescents (between 7 and 18 years old), residents in Ceara Cove, in situation of risk, which participate in their district in the Semi-open Programme of Formation in Saint Monica’s Home.
3. Minors of both sexes (between 7 and 18 years old) who have been adjusted and are residents in the nearby districts of CEU. They have at their disposition the formative installations of Saint Monica’s Home.

The risk factors which define the presence of the first two groups in Saint Monica’s Home are variable, and don´t appear in the same frequency and intensity in every person. They are of various types: personal, familiar, social and cultural.

A. Factors of personal risk

The young girls who have suffered bad treatment, abuse, exploitation and sexual tourism are the first beneficiaries of the Hogar. They have many problems which are easy to see: guilt, low self-esteem, fear, aggressive conduct, emotional instability, depression, lack of control over their impulses, hyperactivity, animosity, identity problems, and disturbed sexual behaviour, among others. The minors insufficiently formed about health and sexual prevention have a right to the services at the Hogar. In their case they have suffered frequent disturbed sexual conduct, without methods of protection or preventive strategies, with the probability of sexual transmitted illnesses and pregnancies and a high level of physical and psychological risk. You can also see the lack of hygiene habits and self-care with the presence of mycosis, malnutrition, parasites, scabies, viruses, weakened immune system…Also they have a tendency towards drug dependency (crack, marijuana, Rupinol, cocaine, and the inhaling of super-glues, etc.)

Direct beneficiaries of Saint Monica’s Home are minors with malnutrition, weakened immune systems and those with physical and cognitive development problems. Lastly, we will search for young girls with a lack of interest for their academic and professional formation, and those with learning difficulties. Their lack of preparation obliges them to look for other ways of surviving. Where actual illiteracy is seen this results in functional illiteracy: people very vulnerable to being deceived or losing out in work opportunities, public help and social participation.

B. Factors of family risk

The greater part of aggression starts in the family environment, from negligence up until abuse and sexual exploitation. Domestic violence materializes in continuous physical and psychological aggression. The existence of violence in the home would be taken into account by the Hogar, when young girls come from such situations. Many of the young girls are born as a result of sexual relations maintained in the context of the sexual exploitation of their mothers, and have the grave risk of repeating this family history. In some cases, instigated by their own mothers, daughters are seen as a way of perpetuating the “family business” when they are older and will have to abandon prostitution.

Another important risk factor is the weakened family systems, as one-parent families are associated with unemployment. Normally it is the mother who is responsible for the family after repeated abandonments by a series of inappropriate father figures. Also, there are many large families with few resources and unable to give attention to minors because of intense and badly paid working hours. Many young girls without sufficient maturity are left to look after smaller brothers and sisters.

Likewise, there exist adolescent mothers with children born of circumstantial relations or the fruit of abuses and/or sexual exploitations. At the moment of pregnancy the adolescent abandons the school environment, and is left alone and without resources. In some cases this causes the rejection of the child, negligent behavior, violence, abandonments and expulsions from the family home. Lastly, the Hogar will try to look after families with fewer resources, living in housing without security and sanitary access. The overcrowding makes intimacy and living together difficult, added to the problem of disturbing sexual behavior.

C. Factors of social risk

In Ceara Cove vandalism, drugs trafficking and the practice of criminal behavior are frequent. Young girls are left exposed to aggression and learn aggressive behaviors as a defense mechanism, for what rules is the “law of the jungle”: the strongest survive. In Ceara Cove the selling of drugs on a small scale is common, carried out in many cases by minors. This facilitates the access to addictive substances from the earliest years.

Another important risk factor is the poor and no salutary housing conditions, and the lack of social resources: health centers, hospitals, schools and social assistance. The schools have defective infrastructures and are overcrowded, which damages the learning process and makes them a focus point for the transmission of diseases. The sewage systems are faulty, inefficient or non-existent and are a source of infections and accidents for minors who spend the majority of the day in the street. Also for consideration is the risk factor in the level of unemployment and the lack of offers of work. This foments activities like the collection of rubbish, prostitution, begging and child labor. It is access to another type of exploitation.

From the Project you can see another risk factor: the closeness of housing of minors to the places related to sexual tourism. Bars, hotels, massage parlors, taxi ranks…and, of course, motels which encourage the arrival of pedophiles and pimps posing as tourists. The absence of green zones and clean areas for leisure and sports activities purports also a risk in the social and sexual conduct damaged by the lack of healthy relaxation activities.

D. Factors of cultural risk: gender, race and nacionality

There are many misogynist beliefs and attitudes which put women in a submissive position. The culture in North-East Brazil participates in a patent or veiled way, in behaviors which exclude women. Equality policies are either insufficient or non-existent.

Furthermore, in the popular image there are still after-effects of the history of colonization where the foreigner is placed in a higher position because of his buying power. There is a love-hate relationship which mixes cultural nationalism with the desire to escape the immediate reality. Every foreign American or European is seen as a crown prince with economic power to change people’s lives. It is sufficient to win him over with the primary “asset”, the body. The dream that they will soon live in a big house in beautiful European country is present in the imagination of many young girls when they start to participate in sexual exploitation.

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