LATIN AMERICA:
Young People on the
Fringes of Society
By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS)
- Seven million young
Brazilians and nearly
800,000 youngsters in
Argentina swell the
ranks of a veritable
army of Latin American
youths who neither work
nor study -- a
phenomenon that
threatens to continue
reproducing poverty
unless effective
measures are urgently
taken to integrate them
in society, say experts.
In Brazil, those who do
not work or attend
school make up nearly 20
percent of young people
between the ages of 15
and 24, according to a
study on youth
development drawn up by
sociologist Julio Jacobo
Waiselfisz.
Jorge Werthein, director
of the Latin American
Technological
Information Network (RITLA),
which commissioned the
report, said the cause
of the situation is
"structural and
historical inequality"
which is "a reality
throughout Latin
America."
The problem is reflected
in limited access to the
labour market, education
and health services,
high mortality rates,
and even the fall in
quality of public
education, Werthein told
IPS.
He also said the
increase in the
high-risk population
generates greater
violence. In countries
like Germany, Spain and
France, there is one
homicide for every
100,000 young people,
while in Russia or in
Latin American nations
like Brazil, Colombia or
Venezuela the proportion
is 50 murders per
100,000 youngsters.
These figures are
confirmed by
Waiselfisz’s study.
Young people are the
main victims of homicide
or traffic accidents
because "they are the
most vulnerable, daring
and marginalised from
society, and they feel
invincible, which makes
them especially prone to
being drawn in to crimes
like drug dealing," says
the report.
Due to the lack of
prospects, young people
have no problem saying,
for example, that "I
prefer to be involved in
drug trafficking, even
if I die young, because
that way I’ll have the
things that other people
have, like a motorcycle
or brand name tennis
shoes," says the study.
"That is what we are
unfortunately seeing in
many countries, and
reproducing in others in
Latin America, with the
emergence of gangs,"
said Werthein.
His study also found
that 9.3 percent of
young whites in Brazil
finish secondary school,
compared to 7.7 percent
of blacks.
But Werthein is not
completely pessimistic.
He noted that programmes
developed in Brazil over
the last few years have
led, for example, to
progress towards
universal primary school
enrolment, which has
climbed to 97 percent,
and in the fight against
illiteracy among the
country’s youths, which
has plunged to 2.4
percent.
The expert said it must
be a top priority for
the region to implement
long-term education
plans, with a 30 to
40-year horizon, as
Argentina has begun to
do.
He added that although
Brazil has not yet done
that, "a novel
development is that an
extremely important
conceptual change began
to take root" two years
ago, when the leftist
government of Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva
made education a top
priority, and when it
more recently launched a
15-year education plan.
Under the umbrella of
these long-term
education strategies,
Werthein mentioned
initiatives like the
digital inclusion
programmes applied by
RITLA, "which are
incredibly attractive to
young people," and not
only improve access to
and quality of
information but also
generate technical and
teaching jobs for young
people.
Werthein is also
optimistic with respect
to Argentina, because of
what he sees as a
special focus on
combating poverty and
marginalisation over the
last four years, under
the centre-left
administration of Néstor
Kirchner, who was
succeeded in December by
his wife, Cristina
Fernández.
But the situation is
still serious in that
country, he warned. A
study by the
International Labour
Organisation (ILO)
reported that 756,000
people between the ages
of 18 and 25 in
Argentina neither study
nor work, and that 76
percent of that group is
made of young women who
dropped out of secondary
school.
Guillermo Pérez Sosto,
one of the authors of
the report, "Trabajo
Decente y Juventud"
(Decent Work and Youth),
explained to IPS that 70
percent of these young
women come from poor
families.
"Many of these women had
children when they were
still in their teens,
and they remain
circumscribed to the
domestic realm, which is
why they are so
invisible," said Pérez
Sosto.
Many others "drop out of
school to work, but lose
their job and do not
look for a new one," he
added.
He noted that school
drop-outs often end up
involved in precarious
work, in which 62
percent of employed
youngsters in Argentina
are engaged.
In Argentina, like in
Brazil, poor youths are
driven by the desire for
consumer goods, he said.
To obtain them, they "go
out on the streets
without any clear plan,
in search of money,
which they find by
cleaning windshields at
stoplights, panhandling,
or taking advantage of
people who are
absent-minded or have
let down their guard,"
he said.
Pérez Sosto believes the
only effective way to
bring about change is by
eliminating the causes
of the problem, through
preventive actions aimed
at keeping young people
in school. For example,
he said, by ensuring
that there are guardians
or tutors who track them
down when they start
skipping class and who
take an interest in
their problems, and by
combating teen pregnancy
and drug use.
But in the case of young
women, it is more
complex, he added. "The
girls don't want to
work, and it's not clear
that they want to return
to their studies, at
least they don't say so
in the interviews"
carried out as part of
the study.
"If the educational
system was better at
holding on to students
and the labour market
was less precarious, it
would be easier for
these boys and girls,"
he said.
Although successful
programmes have been
carried out to improve
the situation, "they do
not address the
underlying problems," he
said.
As an example, he
mentioned a plan that
began to be implemented
jointly in 2006 by
Argentina’s Education
Ministry and the Toyota
carmaker. The strategy
focuses on training and
insertion in the labour
market for unemployed
secondary school
drop-outs.
While they underwent
training to work in the
Toyota factory, the
participating youngsters
received 900 pesos (300
dollars) a month, and
when the training course
was over, they were
hired by Toyota at a
monthly wage of 2,400
pesos (800 dollars).
But out of 2,600
youngsters who applied
for the 300 spots in the
programme, only 60
passed the psychological
tests and were found to
have the required
learning ability, he
lamented.
Nor has Uruguay, a much
smaller country located
between Brazil and
Argentina which has
traditionally had a
strong middle class,
escaped the problem of
legions of youngsters
dropping out of
secondary school and
remaining unemployed.
According to a 2006
survey by the National
Institute of Statistics,
around 25 percent of
young people between the
ages of 18 and 24 fall
in that category, which
is growing at a rate of
three percent a year.
To combat the
phenomenon, the leftist
government of Tabaré
Vázquez, who took office
in 2005, launched the
Projoven (ProYouth)
programme, which is run
by the Ministry of
Social Development.
Projven carries out
skills training
programmes with a gender
perspective, aimed at
getting young people to
continue their studies
or to enter the labour
market.
The programme responds
to the needs of the
young people receiving
the training, while
linking them up with the
demand for labour power
by businesses, says a
document provided to IPS
by the director of the
National Youth
Institute’s programmes
section, Ricardo Amorím.
However, the proportion
of young people who are
working dropped from 55
to 52 percent between
2005 and 2006, with the
percentage being even
higher in slum
neighbourhoods and among
women in rural areas.
In Mexico, meanwhile,
three out of 10 young
people between the ages
of 20 and 29 are
unemployed, and one out
of four of these are not
studying either,
according to the 2006
national survey on
employment.
President Felipe
Calderón promised to
create between one and
1.2 million jobs a year
-- the total needed to
absorb the number of
young people entering
the labour market every
year.
To meet that goal, he
launched the "first job
programme", which
consists of subsidising,
for up to 12 months, the
social security costs of
employers who hire
someone who has never
worked before. But as of
November, only 12,000
new jobs had been
created -- in a country
of 109 million --
through the programme.
Economist Abraham
Aparicio at the National
Autonomous University of
Mexico told IPS that
this situation erodes
the country’s human
capital, foments
poverty, and widens the
gap between the rich and
poor, while fuelling the
growth of the informal
sector of the economy --
depriving the state of
fiscal revenues -- and
driving up crime rates.
Aparicio described as
"escape valves"
employment in the
informal economy, in
which some 17 million
people are active, and
emigration, an option
resorted to by 500,000
people a year, who try
to cross into the United
States.
Support programmes for
young people have also
been implemented in
Mexico City, which has a
population of 20 million
and has been governed by
the leftwing Party of
the Democratic
Revolution since 1997.
One of the programmes
created "social
guardians" in
neighbourhoods where
unemployment and youth
violence are at their
worst. Their task,
financed by the city
government, is to get
young people involved in
different community,
sports and cultural
activities.
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