RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), the greatest exponent among the Neopentecostal churches, has been influencing the future of vulnerable children and adolescents in Brazil’s peripheries, outside their church congregations.
The church has targeted the so-called “tutelage councils”, municipal administrative agencies set up to protect the rights of children and adolescents, whose members are elected by popular vote. For some years now, several municipalities have witnessed a takeover of these bodies by religious groups.
In São Paulo, 53% of city councilors who took office in 2020 are linked to neopentecostal denominations, according to a survey by the Municipal Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents.
There is no official data for Rio de Janeiro, but a survey conducted by councilors shows that there the figure is close to 65%. The 2019 election for tutelage councilors was one of the most polarized in recent years, with churches and secular sectors disputing the councils by vote. The mandates run until the end of 2023.
In the state capital, this phenomenon has engendered a court case: in September, the state prosecutor’s office filed a petition for the immediate removal of Ahlefeld Maryoni Fernandes – who is a member of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God – from his post as Council Coordinator, a kind of maximum authority of the Rio de Janeiro tutelage councils.
He is accused of having worked in the 2019 elections to benefit candidates linked to his religious group. This is not Fernandes’ first problem with the law. Last year he lost his mandate as a tutelage councilor on suspicion of corruption. None of this prevented him from being appointed as head of these bodies by Mayor Marcelo Crivella.
The craving for political involvement of these religious movements is explained by their origins. “A fundamental feature of neo-Pentecostalism, particularly of the Brazilian denominations that emerged in the late 1980s, such as the UCKG, is that they are linked to the country’s redemocratization process,” explains Jacqueline Teixeira, PhD in social anthropology and researcher at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (CEBRAP).
They are urban religious movements “that from the outset have sought to establish themselves politically”. This is also related to a feature of these denominations, which provides an “ethics of action in the world”, not focusing on introspection, such as Buddhism, for instance. “It is always thought of as a saving effort, an interventionist bias,”, says the professor. And it was this process of creating strategies of “approximation and occupation of all institutions of the rule of law” that led to the presence of these churches in the Tutelage Councils.
Created within the framework of federal Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA) in 1990, the Tutelage Councils have an obligation to protect the rights of this segment of the population. These rights, the law says, “apply to all children and adolescents, with no discrimination of birth, family status, age, sex, race, ethnicity or color, religion or belief (…) or any other condition that differentiates the persons, families or community in which they live.”
However, the rise of the neo-Pentecostal evangelical churches as a political force and their dominance over the Councils often poses an obstacle to the fulfillment of part of these rights, particularly when the issue is religious freedom, issues of gender identity and practices.
The tutelage councilors’ activities linked to radical religious groups came into focus this year. In August, two cases of great national repercussion shed light on this phenomenon: the first was that of a 10-year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped by her aunt’s partner in the city of São Miguel, in Espírito Santo.
In situations like this Brazilian legislation guarantees access to la egal and safe abortion. But it was not that simple: the Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights, Damares Alves, personally intervened in the case, sending emissaries to the location in an attempt to prevent the victim’s family from having the pregnancy interrupted, even though it had already been authorized by the Court.
Damares is said to have had the help -and confidential intelligence- provided by two conservative tutelage advisors linked to the neopentecostals who acted in the case, something that is still under investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office.
Later the child was able to have an abortion in another state, but not before having her name and address divulged on social media by people linked to the Minister, such as the far-right activist Sara Giromini.
The second case involved a mother who lost custody of her 12-year-old daughter at the behest of the Tutelage Council of Araçatuba, in the interior of São Paulo, after the girl had her head shaved consensually in a candomblé initiation ritual. The girl’s grandmother, an evangelical, was responsible for the denunciation, in which she alleged mistreatment and sexual abuse, a theory supported by the counselors without any factual evidence. For the family’s counsel, it is a case of religious intolerance. Days later, the courts ordered custody to be returned to the mother.
Couples who experience a divorce – and the impacts of separation on the child – are said to be addressed as a problem of “the absence of God in their lives”; LGBT children are sent to “church mass exorcism sessions and miracle cures”; and children who become violent because of bullying at school are threatened with being sent to shelters. These cases have been reported by Tutelage Councilors in São Paulo, and involve the work of colleagues linked to the UCKG during assistance to families in conflict.
The UCKG is very serious about the council elections. On the Church’s website, a page encourages the faithful to vote “for good people”. At times this campaign becomes more ostentatious: sources from the Municipal Council for the Rights of Children and Adolescents of São Paulo, which organizes the election, reported that candidates had their candidacies challenged when it was found that pastors were soliciting votes for them during services, which is forbidden.
In addition, some aspiring councilors were using UCKG’s federal Corporate Taxpayer Registry Number (CNPJ) to confirm the periodicity and term of volunteer work, a requirement of the public notice. In practice, they stated that they had fulfilled the prerequisite of voluntary work in activities related to the UCKG temples. This could only be possible if the church were registered with the Children’s Council as a service institution, something that does not occur given the religious nature of the institution.
The UCKG reported that “it does not participate directly or indirectly in the elections for the Tutelary Councils. However, as a segment of society, it argues that all – faithful or not – are actively involved in Brazilian life”. Also according to the note, “Universal reiterates that it strictly complies with the Brazilian laws and those of the other 134 countries where it operates.”
At the service of what?
A more conservative profile in the councils has a dramatic impact on a specific part of society, point out its critics. “Those who seek tutelage are already a more vulnerable segment, with their rights violated. And, within this universe, the black, LGBT, and peripheral populations suffer the most from the disservice of some councilors,” says Fernando Júnior, training director of the São Paulo Association of TutelaGE Councilors and Former Councilors (APCT).
He also challenges the interference of religious power in a body that should act in a secular way. “The UCKG holds almost 50% of the councils in São Paulo. What are they at the service of? Are they aware of social causes? When these forces interfere they create a project that is not necessarily aligned with the best interests of society,” he says.
As a rule, families and young victims of a councilor’s ideological assistance do not report these irregular behaviors.
The misconduct of a councilor can pose tremendous obstacles in the life of a vulnerable youth, leading them to be sent to the Fundação Casa, a detention center for juvenile delinquents. Former councilor Valdison da Anunciação Pereira explains.
“Several times the police station would call saying they had arrested a ‘minor’ for an offense with no violence [simple theft, reception, and trafficking], and saying that they had not located the family.” Since the offense was not violent, detention at the Fundação Casa and compliance with a socioeducational measure is not the only -and sometimes not the best- solution possible for the youth. But Pereira watched in dismay as inexperienced colleagues, who joined the councils during the neopentecostal wave, replied to the detective that “this was not their concern”.
“They could have tried to find the family or sent them to an Institutional Shelter Service for Children and Adolescents, where the child or adolescent could be housed,” he says.
Councilor José Antonio de Lima Neto, 36, has been attending the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God since he was 13 years old, and has worked at the tutelage councils in São Paulo for five years. He states that most of his colleagues base their work on the ECA and the Constitution.
“The principle must always be ECA, not religion. We should never use theological knowledge in our work,” he says. Neto cites as an example a service he provided involving a transgender boy. “The family, particularly an uncle who lived with him, did not accept it.”
Regardless of his beliefs, the councilor advised “the family that the main thing is for the youth to feel good, and said that the teenager had the right to dress and behave as he wanted, and that this would be better for him.”
This process of neopentecostal ascension in the tutelage councils did not happen overnight. “I began to realize this impact from 2008 onwards. It used to happen more modestly, but from that year on a more organized approach was evident,” says Júnior, from APCT. In the 1990s the profile of councilors was of people linked to social movements and social pastorals of the Catholic Church. “From 2005 on, they began to work more closely with political parties, and then the neopentecostals were strengthened.”
Former councilor Pereira also saw firsthand the takeover of councils by religious conservatives. Among the features of this group he highlights the “lack of experience” in assisting children and the “lack of knowledge” of the duties of the post. “When I left the council, a person linked to Universal who had never worked with it was elected to coordinate the committee to monitor the national system of socio-educational assistance [which monitors the situation of youths who comply with some form of punishment after committing an offense],” Pereira recalls.
“After a few days in office, he called me aside and asked if I could give him the contact ‘of a certain Sinasi who everyone was talking about,” he says amid laughter. Sinasi is the National System of Socio-Educational Assistance, not a person.
In contrast to Pereira and Júnior, CEBRAP’s Jacqueline points out that the UCKG only filled a political niche “that was virtually abandoned” in the councils. “And this is thought of as an electoral technology and political training for councilors,” she says. In addition, the professor points out that there is a link between these bodies and other political spheres, such as municipal councils, as the position of councilor allows for a great closeness of the state with the population.
“Elections for the Tutelage Councils are a thermometer and training for them to transition into other larger electoral processes.”
The presence of bishops and pastors participating in the councils’ daily activities is also not uncommon. “There was a council in São Paulo in which on a certain day of the week the pastor would go there to make interventions during attendance,” Pereira says.
Source: El País