They know I can cause trouble for them. As we moved along, Soares talked with children, asking how they were and what was happening. A hundred years ago the plaza anchored a neighborhood of mansions built by agricultural barons who'd grown rich from the country's coffee boom. Today the neighborhood is full of stores and offices that bustle by day. When the sun goes down, the shoppers give way to junkies and the park is populated by crack dealers who linger in the shadows, their flashy clothes and leather waist packs signaling their vocation.
Police also patrol the park.
What the police do is rough up street kids, as they have for years. That Soares dissuaded them by her mere presence is a sign that things have changed a little. According to Rodrigo Gonzalez, a lawyer and children's activist in the southern city of Porto Alegre, police violence against children is down in several areas. Yet even though they know the law, they can choose to ignore it. Then they're going to take the kid away somewhere, beat them up, and then turn them lose because they know that if they turn a beaten child into the courts today that they're going to have problems.