OREANDA-NEWS. An initiative to prevent and combat the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, promoted by Vale's Salobo Project, in Para, won the Neide Castanha Award for Social Responsibility, granted this Wednesday, May 15, by the Secretariat for Human Rights of the Presidency of the Republic.

The work started in 2008 with awareness-raising actions for the employees in Salobo and for the communities in the areas of influence in Vilas Sancao and Paulo Fonteles. In addition to this initiative, other programs focusing on the same issue are ongoing in the locations where we operate, such as the Sex Education Program, in Maranhao, and Vale Youth.

The methodology developed in the Salobo Project will be replicated by the Vale Foundation through the Prevention and Combating of Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents Program in the territories where we have operations. The three main areas of focus will be:

- Strengthening of public policies for the childhood rights guarantee system;

- Awareness campaigns for workers in community centres;

- Community empowerment as social actors capable of exerting their rights as citizens.

Understand the Award

Brazilian Neide Castanha is known as a human rights advocate, as she dedicated part of her life to combat violence against children and adolescents in Brazil. She actively participated in the construction process of the Child and Adolescent Statute and in the creation of the National Plan to Combat Sexual Violence against Children and Adolescents. The award's objective is to honour individuals and institutions that, just like Neide Castanha, stood out for their uncompromising defence of human rights for children and adolescents, with particular regard to sexual exploitation.