Vulnerabilidades sociais e trajetórias institucionais das adolescentes em uma unidade de semiliberdade feminina

Abstract

In the Brazilian Juvenile Justice, socio-educational measures are levied against young offenders from 12 to 18 years old who committed illegal acts. In the Brazilian National System of Socio- Educational Services there are six socio-educational measures: warnings; reparation of harm; community service; supervised probation; semi-liberty regime; and confinement in an educational facility. The semi-liberty is a partial custodial sanction which requires the juveniles be engaged in schooling and employment activities at the community during daytime and they must return to the facility at night during the week. The experiences of young women in socio-educational system have not been deeply investigated in our country. Besides, a chauvinist and misogynist culture prevails in the socio-educational universe. The article reports a documental analysis performed in judicial documents relating to eight female adolescents who were included in the semi-liberty services in the Federal District- Brazil. Considering the relative lack of studies both on the semi-liberty regime and on young women attended in this socio-educational measure, the article intends: a) to know the profile of these girls; b) to identify social vulnerabilities and violations of rights suffered by these girls and their families; and c) to analyze the institutional trajectory of those girls. Recent data from national reports and academic-scientific research on girls attended in the Brazilian National System of Socio- Educational Services are presented. The semi-liberty regime, its operation and its specificities are discussed. The results of the research indicate that the girls inserted in the semi-liberty regime have low schooling levels and are apprehended for drug trafficking and theft. Their families face several social vulnerabilities and rights violations. The results confirm the importance of including these families in social protection programs as a strategy for preventing female adolescents´ offenses. Analyzes of the girls' institutional trajectory showed that the semi-liberty regime ends generally in three ways: by evading the socio-educational measure; by judicial release; or by continuing on the punitive itinerary in different institutions. We defend the centrality of gender and social class to improving the Brazilian National System of Socio- Educational Services and the need for designing socio-educational care programs specifically for girls in order to guaranteeing their rights.