The House of Passage
appeared in the end of the 80´s, after
the promulgation of the current Constitution
of Brazil. The beginning of its activities coincided
with the debate about the elaboration of the
Statute of Children and Adolescentes (SCA).
At that time,
the socio-economic crisis of the country was
aggravated. There were rebellions of young people
who were arrested and placed in detention centers.
The population and the
government authorities, practically “closed
their eyes” to the phenomenon of the female
children, who were occupying the streets, being
sexually exploited, using drugs, stealing, begging,
and ultimately, competing with the boys for
a space to survive. Girls
that had to go to the street did so because
they did not have food at home, nor privacy,
affection, school or an organized family.
It was from this social
picture that the lawyer Ana Vasconcelos, the
psychologist Cristina Mendonça and Nilvana
Castelli established, in 1989, Casa de Passagem,
to take care of the girls in the street. Later,
it extended its scope, starting to take care
of children, adolescents and young people, of
7 to 24 years in situations of social and personal
vulnerability, coming from low income communities
of the Metropolitan Region of Recife. It became,
thus, the Brazilian Center of the Child and
the Adolescent - Casa de Passagem.
