Brazil: In the Shadow of the Stadiums Panorama

This programme contains very strong language

and scenes which some viewers may find disturbing.

The world's biggest football tournament is a week away. Hosted by

the world's most successful footballing nation. But in the

shadow of a multi-million pound World Cup stadiums, there is a

darker side to life in Brazil. A world of poverty, drugs, violence,

and child exploitation. The number of children involved in

prostitution in Brazil runs into the hundreds of thousands.

Tonight, Panorama reveals the shame of a country where children openly

tout the business on the streets. In full view of the police. Why don't I

have to be afraid? Do the police never check?

And where hotels flout the law banning underage prostitution.

Even though they are victims of sexual exploitation, some of the

children we've spoken to are happy to be identified on camera. With the

advice of children's charities and with the consent and support of

their parents, in the UK this film will show the faces of some of the

victims. In order to highlight their plight.

Sunset over Sao Paulo, the largest city in the southern hemisphere.

Home to almost 20 million people. As darkness descends, young girls start

to appear on the streets. They're here to sell their bodies.

We've just spotted two young girls that appear to be prostitutes. They

also looked like they're smoking crack cocaine. Prostitution is legal

in Brazil but only for those over the age of 18. Among the girls on

the streets is 14-year-old Joyce. This is your home? At her mother's

invitation and with an aid worker present, Joyce agrees to show us

where she lives. Her family are squatters in a half built abandoned

tower block. Most of the block is incomplete darkness.

Which apartment is yours, Joyce? This one up here? Yes.

It's like a war zone. Hello. The building is full of drug dealers

and crack addicts and we have to negotiate access with an armed gang

who control the block. This is your house? This is

unbelievable. I don't know how to describe it. It's like a derelict

apartment block with people living in it. This is Joyce's home.

Hello. Wow! Joyce's two young brothers, aged

five and seven, have been left alone in the apartment. While their mother

is out at work, Joyce is supposed to look after them but to get money to

buy drugs, she often heads to the streets to sell herself.

How much to the men pay you for sex? That's around ?13. Where do you have

sex with them? Joyce's apartment is just a few

hundred meters from Sao Paulo's brand-new stadium, where the World

Cup will kick off next week. As thousands of football fans descend

on the area, there is likely to be even more prostitution on the

streets. Will a loss of children be selling sex during the World Cup? --

a lot of children. Joyce and her friends are among a

huge number of children involved in prostitution in Brazil, estimated in

the hundreds of thousands. Despite government promises of a crackdown,

charities say there's no sign of a decline in the run-up to the World

Cup. The next day, we're invited back to

the block to meet Joyce's mother Debra, and the true scale of the

squalor is even more apparent. The family have squatted here for

six months. And Deborah is struggling to cope.

Deborah says Joyce's drug use has seen her behaviour become

increasingly volatile. Deborah's trying to earn enough

money to get her family out of the block as soon as possible.

While living in the block, Deborah feels powerless to stop her

daughter's drug taking. Along with the addicts, there are also several

pimps here, controlling girls like Joyce.

This human misery is found in a country which, until recently, at

one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Yet around a fifth of

the population in Sao Paulo still live in favelas, or slums. Some of

the most extreme poverty lies in the shadow of the new ?250 million

stadium. TRANSLATION: Miserable conditions,

hunger, a lack of real public policies, inspection, prevention.

That is why children are selling their bodies here in Brazil.

Congresswoman Lilliam Sa has just released the findings of Brazil's

first national parliamentary enquiries into child prostitution.

Her research took her to all 12 World Cup cities. TRANSLATION: What

we have seen during these trips left is flabbergasted because of sexual

exploitation, sex tourism, are visible in Brazil in an endemic

form, growing all the time, and we're fighting so that the

normalisation, the acceptance of this sexual exploit Asian, does not

jeopardise Brazilian childhood. -- exploitation. Part of that fight is

with those cashing in on the child sex trade, including hoteliers.

So-called love motels are often used by men who pick up underage girls.

Rooms can be rented by the hour for just a few pounds. Even though it's

illegal for these hotels to allow anybody inside who is under 18. With

her mother's permission, Joyce offers to take me to one of the love

motels she says she's visited before. I play the part of her

client to put the law to the test. Charity workers stay in contact with

us throughout filming. One hour. One hour.

The receptionist should, by law, ask to see Joyce's proof of

identification. With no questions asked, we're given a key to a

bedroom. Joyce appears to know her way around the motel.

And they provide a free condom with the room.

Joyce tells me she is far from the youngest girl who comes to the motel

with strangers. You told me they get violent. You've

hurt your head and you're back. But got a scar on your back. Did a man

do that to you? How did that happen? The charity workers who were with us

as we filmed are now trying to improve Joyce's situation. There

many more love motels around the Sao Paulo arena, one of 12 World Cup

stadiums which have cost around ?2 billion to build all modern eyes.

Joyce's mother Deborah is around many Brazilians angry at this vast

expense. -- among many Brazilians. Deborah, do a lot of people feel,

like you, that the government is wasting money, rather than helping

families and children like Joyce? The government say that hosting the

World Cup will boost the economy and the money they've spent on stadiums

is tiny compared to what they're spending to tackle poverty. But in

this football mad nation, widespread protests have overshadowed the

build-up to the World Cup. We feel like we've been robbed by the

politicians and fever. We have many problems that are not being solved.

-- the politicians and FIFA. No jobs. No justice. We're angry

because we lack a good education system, a good health system and

reliable security. I guess people are just getting to develop it. The

anger is targeted at how slowly Brazil's inequalities are being

addressed. We headed to the poorest region of the country, the tropical

north east, to visit Fortaleza, another World Cup venue.

Behind the tourist facade, it's one of the world's most violent cities.

Renovating the Arena Castelau has cost around ?150 million.

Another impressive stadium right in the heart of another area well known

for its poverty and child prostitution.

Fortaleza is a favoured destination for sex tourists.

We spot two girls on the street, right outside a police station.

As we get close, it's clear they're very young.

With a charity worker, we play the part of British tourists and

they quickly offer us "a programme", the local slang for sex.

So you have no idea? No identification? Having conversations

like this with girls that look so young, some younger than others, but

none of them have IDE. And how much would it be for a programme? That is

30, ?40. Why don't I have to be afraid? Do the police never check? A

police car has just gone by, I am talking to a very young girl, they

don't take any notice. We soon hear further evidence

the police turn a blind eye. In the heart of the tourist area

by the seafront, we come across a young boy clearly

touting for business with a friend. touting for business with a friend.

We explain we're a film crew, and he agrees to talk to us

as long as we protect his identity. He says he's actually 14

and has been involved in prostitution since he was 11.

Why are you a prostitute, why do you do this? You're so young.

Do you not get scared, having sex with grown men?

Is there a pimp? Do you have a pimp around here?

Three pimps? The police keep walking past. They

haven't enquired why we're talking. They don't seem to be interested

that you are here selling sex. Why is that?

We have no way of verifying these allegations, but the parliamentary

inquiry into child prostitution has found that the Brazilian police

are often part of the problem. TRANSLATION: I was shocked, because

I found the police themselves cover these exploiters, the pimps, male

and female. Impunity is rife. There is also a lack of effective

supervision in the judiciary. The police child protection unit in

Fortaleza insists it is tackling the issue of police complacency.

TRANSLATION: This is not supposed to happen. This is not the guidance

they are given. Recently, the Department of Public Security

trained many police officers. It was a very productive training, exactly

on this issue of child sexual exploitation. I'm not saying that

every police officer is guilty of this, but we have filmed police

officers walking past child prostitutes, turning a blind eye to

what is going on. TRANSLATION: For me, this

information is strange. In every incident involving a child or

teenager involved in a situation of sexual exploitation, police officers

immediately have the reported to the police child services. What is

perhaps more shocking is some of the children that we have met and

interviewed, they allege that some of the officers pay them for sex.

What is your reaction to that? TRANSLATION: Because we have a very

rigid Inspector General office, you can be sure that if a report like

this reaches any inspector, this police officer will be removed.

Fortaleza's police and social services take us on a patrol to show

how they're dealing with child prostitution ahead of the World Cup.

Even in daylight, young girls are selling themselves around the

stadium. The youngest they find is

14 years old. So we've just been told that

the plan is now to take this girl back to her parents.

All they seem able to do is warn these girls not to get involved

in prostitution. There's only so much they can do.

Social services admit resources are scarce, and we're told it's highly

likely the 14-year-old will be back on the streets within days.

On the luxurious beachfront, World Cup teams will be checking

in in a few days' time. But just one block behind is one of

the city's most dangerous favelas. It's called Big Black 8,

slang for a .38 calibre gun. Aid worker Andrew Fanstone runs a

project in the heart of the favela, helping children escape the cycle of

drugs and prostitution. This is one of the only communities

in the city that don't have any health workers coming here because

of the violence. Ambulances won't enter here. Even a Coca-Cola truck

didn't come in, and you know if a Coca-Cola truck doesn't arrive

in a place it, it is dangerous. Even the police rarely enter the

favela, which is controlled by drugs gangs.

You look around and deals are taking place absolutely everywhere. And a

lot of it is just... They have just bought a drugs right beside us. It

is happening all around me. I have never seen anything like it.

So it goes on down here, it keeps going. All of the drug barons are in

the middle, protected. We are right in the middle here.

, and filming here, this is one of the drug dens they sit around in. --

come and film in here. You can see the crack and stuff. This one is to

burn it. This addict has recently taken the decision to send his

one-year-old son away from the favela.

Is someone coming to use... ? We had to leave, someone is coming here to

use this crack them to take drugs, so we have to go.

Everywhere we turn in the favela, we meet drug addicts. This is where

this family lives. She has got one child but lives with her at the

moment and her other sister, so these two ladies, unfortunately, use

drugs during the day, crack cocaine. This is where it all starts, really,

this is the factory where prostitution starts. God, it is just

like a rubbish dump. It is, they live in a rubbish dump. It is a

hole, really. With many of the parents on drugs, prostitution is

common. Many of the children here, their family is involved in the

business. There aren't, their mum, diagram. -- there aren't, their mum,

their grand. For them, it is a way of life. We have to show them it is

not right and give them the opportunity to change. There is a

girl here just totally, totally out of it. She has obviously just done a

hit of crack cocaine. Burying her head, crying, very distressed. She

has got tuberculosis as well. Just a dark, damp environment and lots of

drugs. There is a network of open sewers

like this all over the favela. And when the heavens opened, as you can

see, they overflow and all of the rubbish runs then this hill towards

the end. It is not a place to be wandering around in bare feet and

the stench of human excrement is quite overwhelming.

The toxic mix of poverty, drug addiction and sexual exploitation

leaves a terrible toll. Andrew takes this to a woman clearly on the edge.

The 24-year-old has been a crack addict and involved in prostitution

since she was 12. Throughout most of Aline's adult

life, the Brazilian economy has been growing at an impressive rate. So

where is the help for the many like her? The Government says it is

spending vast amounts on national programmes to lift millions out of

extreme poverty, but admits it is an enormous challenge. The most

controversial part of Brazil's strategy is pacification, the

attempt to take control of favela is. -- favelas.

We have come to Rio de Janeiro. This is BOPE, the elite Military Police.

On a patrol around one of their showcase projects, the recently

pacified Villa Kennedy in the north of the city. Four years drug gangs

have fought each other for control of favelas like this one. The idea

of these operations is to try to drive the gangs out.

BOPE entered a Villa Kennedy two months ago in an attempt to secure

the favela. They say, job done. In taking over the favelas, the

police believe they are liberating these communities, rather than

controlling them. BOPE will soon withdraw from Villa

Kennedy, handing over to the civilian police. If this operation

goes to plan, the community will see the benefit of one of the largest

welfare programmes in the world, which has already reached over 50

million Brazilians. This, say the government, is the key to ending the

exploitation of children. TRANSLATION: Overcoming all of this

is going to have a direct effect on the inclusion of these children. It

will put an end to this cycle of needing to enter into a socially

unacceptable world in order to be able to survive.

But such a visible armed presence has led to allegations of excessive

force and brutality in some of the pacified favelas. This is one of the

best-known favelas, dubbed the Gaza Strip due to its violent history. It

was pacified in late 2012. No government PR to this time. The

situation is tense from the moment we enter.

They call these novellas pacified. It's not quite the real situation.

-- these further letters. What you see here is a typical everyday

occurrence where the police approach a man. They are nervous, he is

nervous, and then residents start to throw rocks at the police. That's a

prime example of the tensions here. There are two police officers

arriving now, holding their guns. The police withdraw and the

situation doesn't escalate further. We've no idea if the police had shot

at the boys or not. Across the city, the number of people killed by the

police has risen dramatically over the last year.

Pacification has made a real difference in some favelas but so

far, only 38 have been pacified in Rio out of an estimated 600. And

there's little sign things are improving for hundreds of thousands

of children across Brazil in prostitution. The many, it's

business as usual. -- for many. We drive out on the BR116, the main

highway running almost the entire length of Brazil, from Fortaleza in

the north beyond Rio to the southern border. It is dubbed the highway to

hell. That's because of the sheer number of children selling their

bodies here. This highway is maybe 3000 miles long and a recent survey

discovered almost 300 areas where child prostitution is taking place

and that means, on average, children can be found offering sex nearly

every ten miles. In an overnight truck park near the

small town of Salguero, we see girls entering a bar full of truck

drivers. We filmed them working the tables

and flirting with the men. Several of the girls appear to be very

young. Police patrols regularly checked out

truck parks and bars along the highway looking for victims of

exploitation. Just off the BR116, the local child

protection service introduced us to children they are trying to help

return to a normal life. This girl has just turned 12.

So that's your house? A flower. And this is the sky. It's very good.

She seems like a typical child but social services tell me how grim her

childhood has been. Just down the road, we need another

child, a 13-year-old. She's been diagnosed as HIV-positive. -- meet

another child. Do you understand why people are worried about you going

to the petrol station and bars and speaking to the truck drivers and

spending time with them? Why'd you do what you do? It's so

dangerous. And there is another huge danger for

the children of the BR116. The Brazilian Parliamentary report

highlights that children are being trafficked to World Cup host cities.

TRANSLATION: We're going to have millions of tourists throughout

Brazil but we have these sexual exploitation gangs which are going

to try and use the tourists, some of whom come over here with a

preconceived idea which was sold to them about Brazil, that here having

sex with children is easy. This is 15-year-old Gabriella. She

says that earlier this year she was lowered from a remote town 600 miles

from Rio, inking she'd be working in a coffee shop. -- thinking.

Once in Rio, she says she was forced to sell herself to tourists along

Copacabana beach. Gabriella tells me that every penny

she made through prostitution was taken by her pimps.

After three weeks, Gabriella did manage to escape and contacted her

mum One Direction. One Direction is now happy for her daughter to share

her story with us to highlight the problem of trafficking. -- Alvani.

Gabriella and her mother may be reunited. But in a country

criticised for failing to tackle sexual exploitation, there are

thousands more children with little hope of escaping the sex trade.

The World Cup, just a week away now, has done more than anything to

highlight the dramatic gap between Brazil's rich and poor.

But perhaps there's no greater shame for Brazil's government than the

many children involved in prostitution.

They may be known as child prostitutes. The reality is they are

simply victims. Since we first met 14-year-old

Sexual exploitation is a cruel way to take away adolescence. It is a

life lost. Since we first met 14-year-old

Joyce, her case has been referred to a social worker from a children's

charity. She and her family are clinging to the hope that life will

soon change. 'I'm going on an adventure.'

Wow. That is a long way.

Quite a bit of it is on bikes. What are you going to do

about your hair? They told me I had good technique,

I'm quite happy with that. Is this the most adventurous thing

you've ever done? Without a doubt.