UN repudiates Bolsonaro for using children to promote military police

During an official act in the city of Belo Horizonte, Bolsonaro held up a boy dressed as if he was a member of the Police officer Military and commented favorably that minors play with guns just like he did when he was a child.

“Brazil is a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to the Protocol on the Participation of Minors in Armed Conflicts”, recalls the Committee’s document published this Tuesday in Geneva, Switzerland.

Last week, the ultra-conservative president also defended free sales and the carrying of weapons.

The liberation of the arms market was one of the main promises of Bolsonaro’s election campaign in 2018.

In some acts of proselytizing, the then presidential candidate was shown with children with his fingers simulating the shape of weapons, one of the iconic gestures of the ex-serviceman.

In its statement, the UN Committee called on the Brazilian government to “immediately and urgently suspend the use of children in military uniform and to remove the images disseminated in the media”.