SANCAST, what is it?

The Sao Paulo Court of Justice counts with a service of support for refuge requesters, the SANCAST, Anexed Sector of Attendance to Children and Teenagers who Request Refuge and Foreign Victims of International Human Trafficking, created by Provision CSM n# 2279/2015, that takes place at the Childhood and Youth Office of Penha in France. It consists of the main good practice of Brazil and international reference of attention to the interest of the child refugee.

Children unaccompanied by parents or family, as long as they are requesting refuge or are victims of international human traffic, are received by the Center of Reference for Refugees of the Caritas Arquidiocesana of Sao Paulo. Through Tutelary Council, these children are taken in institutionally in shelters at Penha, traditional neighborhood of Sao Paulo, moment that initiates the specific procedure to keep track at SANCAST of the reception.

Just like other children received, those of SANCAST have all the social and psychological support, have their cases analyzed by the Technical Sectors of Psychology and Social Service, debated with the children’s and teenager’s safety net, with the technicians of the shelter, with the equipments to attend to mental health, with the Public Defense and the Public Ministry at concentrated court hearings.

The peculiarities are few, but significant. There is a communication with branches that, in the normal flux of a Childhood and Youth Office, does not usually exist: Federal Police, Conare (National Committee for Refugees), UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), Red Cross and the Caritas Arquidiocesana of Sao Paulo. Furthermore, debates with the youth on the cases of those received as refugees are usually in French or English.

Those accepted as refugees are generally from Africa, predominantly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, are young people close to reaching age of majority and have a past marked by suffering and persecution in their homeland. That arises the first difficulty, as the Consul of their country of origin cannot be counted upon seeing that the refugee is being persecuted. Besides, the refugees usually arrive without documents and in situation of great vulnerability, sometimes victims of international human traffic dealers, who detain their documents during the journey.

The young come generally from a middle class life and have known wars and persecutions without resemblance from the life stories of the others who have been received. But they also count with a great wish to adopt Brazil as their home, to grow up and to develop themselves here, even though they never stop missing the family they left behind.

The same way there are differences, especially cultural and linguistic, there are points in common with the young Brazilian received: they are people with personalities still in formation, filled with hopes and dreams, believing in better days, replacing maturity for impulse. That is why the hardest obstacle to overcome, right after the language when the refugee does not come from Portuguese speaking African countries, is exactly employment. Thanks to the partnerships of SANCAST with the Labor Ministry and with non-governmental international organizations, the inclusion of these young people in the work market, even as a preparation for adulthood is possible while they wait for their refugee request to be analyzed by CONARE.

The jurisdiction of SANCAST is exclusive for the city of Sao Paulo and its aims to attend the young foreigner who’s vulnerability demands the socioprotective measure of institutional shelter, materializing both article 6 of the Palermo Protocol approved in Brazil by Decret 5.017, of 2004, in which it is determined the assistance and protection to the victims of human trafficking, and articles 21 to 23 of the Refugee Status of 1951, that stablished the rights to shelter, education and public assistance to refugees.