Recife - Social and Environmental Issues

Social and Environmental Issues

Violence

In 2010, Recife had the 5th highest homicide rate in Brazil, between the capitals of Brazil, after only Maceió, Vitória, João Pessoa and Salvador.

PESP plan

The State Governor Eduardo Campos introduced the PESP plan (Security state Plan - Plano Estadual de Seguranca Publica) on second of May 2009, which will try to reduce homicides by 12% each year until they reach half of the previous rate. The plan is based on the fact that 60% of the murders are committed by people related to criminal activities and reaches from the prevention stage until the correctional stage.

Carnival security plan

ISS servers managed 50 Pelco Spectra PTZ cameras to capture all activity within the city's celebratory areas. Continued deployment of this project at Recife, will continue towards a short term goal of over 1000 cameras blanketing the city. Immediate statistics during the Carnival period indicate a reduction in violent crime of over 30%.

Sex tourism

There has been a growing number of foreign tourists who come to Brazil looking for sex, mostly Germans, Italians, and other Europeans.

These tourists come to Recife not for the culture and beaches, but for sex, often with minors. Brazil has a supply of young girls desperate to escape poverty, and the demand from foreign men is rising all the time. In Recife, where a growing population of children sleep on park benches or fall drugged or drunk on the curbs outside bars catering to a brisk trade in sex tourism, many girls who live on the streets have begun slashing themselves with razor blades, often on their forearms.

Recife's secretary for tourism, Romeo Batista, says the long-term antidote to the sex trade lies in better social policies so that Brazilian girls have less need for foreign men and money. Several countries worldwide have their own legislation that prosecutes tourists in their homeland if they engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country with children.