Brazil
Law · Legislation

Child and Adolescent Statute (Law No. 8069 of 1990)

Summary:

The child and adolescent statute establishes a protection regime for children and adolescents, which includes norms on family and community life (education, sport, and culture), guardianship, adoption, among other rights.

Description:

The law is aimed at fully protecting children and adolescents. According to Brazilian framework, children are those people under twelve years old, while adolescents are those between twelve and eighteen years old. In specific cases, the law will exceptionally apply to people between eighteen and twenty-one years old.

Among its provisions, the Child and Adolescent Statute has important highlights:

  • Firstly, it establishes children and adolescents have all the fundamental rights inherent to a human person under the principle of full protection. This principle ensure their physical, mental, moral, spiritual, and social development, under conditions of freedom and dignity.
  • Moreover, it recognizes children and adolescents have the right to the protection of life and health. To this end, there is the need of implementating public policies that allow a healthy and harmonious development and respect their psychological and moral integrity (Article 7).

For FULL purposes, the document is important because it guides all policy-oriented actions related to children and adolescents in Brazil. In this sense, this is the law that established the National Council of the Rights of Children and Adolescents [Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Criança e do Adolescente, CONANDA]. For its turn, CONANDA is the collective body that issued the resolution on advertising and marketing regarding children.