Background

The Special Secretariat for Human Rights is an office attached to the office of the President

President of Brazil

The president of Brazil is both the head of state and head of government of the Federative Republic of Brazil. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the Brazilian Armed Forces...

 of the Federal Republic of Brazil. Its purpose is to implement, promote, and protect human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

, civic rights, and the rights of children

Children's rights

Children's rights are the human rights of children with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to the young, including their right to association with both biological parents, human identity as well as the basic needs for food, universal state-paid education,...

, adoloscents, the elderly, and the disabled. The Secretariat was created on 17 April 1997, during the first administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Fernando Henrique Cardoso – also known by his initials FHC – was the 34th President of the Federative Republic of Brazil for two terms from January 1, 1995 to December 31, 2002. He is an accomplished sociologist, professor and politician...

. Called the National Human Rights Secretariat (Secretaria Nacional dos Direitos Humanos), it was initially attached to the Ministry of Justice. Decree No. 3951/01, effective January 7, 2002, provides for its powers. On 1 January 1999, responsibility for the Secretariat was transferred to the president's office and it assumed its current name. It is headed by the Special Secretary for Human Rights (Secretário Especial dos Direitos Humanos), a ministerial-level position. The current special secretary is Paulo de Tarso Vannuchi, who has been in office since 2005.

International Child Abduction

SEDH operates as the Brazilian Federal Central Authority under the terms of article 6 of the 1993 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption. Besides this, the secretariat also acts as the central authority under the terms of article 6 of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction

Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, or Hague Abduction Convention is a multilateral treaty developed by the Hague Conference on Private International Law that provides an expeditious method to return a child internationally abducted from one member nation to...

. In this respect, it functions as a conduit between other countries' central authorities and the various Regional Federal Tribunals in Brazil which deal with international child abduction cases. In this sense, it is the equivalent of the US Department of State's Office of Children's Issues

Office of Children's Issues

The Office of Children's Issues is an agency of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, which in turn is part of the US Department of State. The Office of Children’s Issues was created in 1994 under the leadership of Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mary Ryan and that of her successor...

 and the UK's Office of the Official Solicitor

Official Solicitor

The Office of the Official Solicitor is a part of the Ministry of Justice of the Government of the United Kingdom. The Official Solicitor acts for people who, because they lack mental capacity and cannot properly manage their own affairs, are unable to represent themselves and no other suitable...

.
Any application for the return of an abducted minor from Brazil must be directed to the central authority of the country from which the child was abducted. This central authority will then contact SEDH , which will analyze and verify all the information and decide whether it complies with the requirements provided for under the Convention. Since the Secretariat has only an administrative and informational remit, it maintains a list of private lawyers that it recommends for Hague Convention cases. These lawyers, however, do not generally respond quickly to requests for assistance from abroad and they have been singularly unsuccessful in having children returned to their home countries. The Secretariat is required under its remit to liaise with the Federal Police of the Ministry of Justice and with Interpol, to locate and return minors who are reported as missing. However, reports from the parents of abducted children say that this is rarely done and that the office that deals with these matters is chaotic.

According to Decree No. 3951/01, SEDH has only administrative and informational competence. It cannot decide cases involving parental kidnapping and return and visitation schedules for abducted children.; this is up to the federal courts.

SEDH and Child Abduction in Brazil

The neutrality of SEDH and its respect for international law has come under increased international focus and scrutiny because of growing concerns over International child abduction in Brazil

International child abduction in Brazil

International child abduction in Brazil comprises cases in which the removal of a child by one of the joint holders of custody or non-custodial or contested parents to Brazil in contravention of other laws of other countries and/or the desires of other custody claimaints...

. In the case of Sean Goldman, a child abducted from the US to Brazil in 2004 and held by his mother's family against the wishes of his father, Special Secretary, Paulo Vannuchi intervened publicly, claiming that the child should remain in Brazil even though this amounted to kidnapping and was against the terms of the Hague Convention. In a speech to the Brazilian parliament in April 2009, he claimed that if the child were allowed to visit his father in the US, he might end up being 'kidnapped', even though the child had been abducted to Brazil in the first place. International outrage and a highly public campaign severely damaged the image of SEDH and the Brazilian judiciary and Sean Goldman was eventually returned to his father in December 2009 only after the US government withdrew trade benefits from Brazil. SEDH continues to be ineffectual in its role as advocate for parents of abducted children and seems to be unable to deliver on its promise to return children to the countries from which they have been kidnapped. When questioned about its success rate, the secretariat always quotes the case of a boy who was abducted from Sweden to Brazil and was returned to Sweden in 2001 after a federal judge applied articles 3 and 4 of the Convention. However, there are no records of any other child, apart from Sean Goldman having been returned to his country of habitual residence through the Hague Convention. SEDH's modus operandi in almost every case appears to be to try to negotiate an agreement in the face of an intrangisent Brazilian parent.

The Coordinator of SEDH, in what some have labeled a damage-limitation exercise, visited
the US Department of State for a full week in November 2009 to review longstanding cases involving the abduction of US children.
During this trip, she and Brazilian Embassy officials met with the parents of children kidnapped and taken to Brazil, NGOs,
members of the US Congress and a federal judge who works on Hague Convention cases. The coordinator explained in detail resolutions made by the Brazilian Supreme Court and SEDH's outreach and education campaign toaddress Brazilian judges’ lack of familiarity with the Convention and the supreme court's
resolutions.

External links

• Secretaria Especial dos Direitos Humanos