Residents, including thousands of children, are victims of violence and evictions stemming from building projects for 2016 Games, Exclusion Games report says

The 2016 Olympics have prompted widespread violations of children’s rights and other civil liberties, according to a new dossier of alleged abuses compiled by academics and nongovernmental organisations.



Evictions, police violence and poor labour conditions top a long list of problems linked to next year’s Games in Rio de Janeiro, claim the coalition of activists led by the Comité Popular who are calling on the International Olympic Committee to pay greater heed to human rights.



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Their report – Exclusion Games – claims that at least 4,120 families have lost their homes and another 2,486 are threatened with removal as a result of infrastructure projects associated with last year’s World Cup and the upcoming Olympics. As a result, they say, thousands of children have been displaced and left – at least temporarily – unable to access education, healthcare and other social services.



The dossier claims other youths have been the victims of an uptick in police and army violence as a result of a struggling favela pacification program that is part of the city’s efforts to prepare for mega-events. Some have been shot and killed, many wounded and countless others psychologically scarred by gunfights and tension.



Terre des Hommes, the NGO that contributed the chapter on children, has produced video testimonies from some of those affected, including Naomy, a 12-year-old girl who sees swaths of her community Vila Autódromo demolished to make way for the Olympic Park, and Gabriel, a 13-year-old boy who was hit by a bullet while playing marbles after the army moved in to the Complexo da Maré favela complex ahead of the World Cup.



The report cites earlier studies by Brunel University, which found that risks of child exploitation – particularly with regard to labour and eviction – increased during previous mega sporting events such as the South Africa World Cup in 2010.



It also includes more recent research by Dundee University and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro into the impact of the World Cup on local children. Among many concerns, it noted the disappearances of several street children who were removed from the streets in “social cleansing” operations ahead of major events.



The Rio city government disputes the allegations. It says that most of the displacements, with the exception of Vila Autódromo, are unrelated to the World Cup and the Olympics.

Instead, it says 72% of relocated families have been moved away from areas prone to floods and landslides, and 9.6% for transportation and other infrastructure projects that benefit the city as a whole. A spokesman said the city’s children are now better off than before thanks to increased spending on healthcare and education.



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The Comité Popular – a group that was active in the mass protests ahead of the World Cup – counters that the social costs of mega-events outweigh the benefits, which are skewed towards the wealthier parts of the city.

Ahead of next year’s Games, the Comité Popular and its partners call on the government to halt evictions, harassment of street vendors, and “cleansing” of homeless children and adolescents. It also urges the IOC to issue a human rights commitment and introduce monitoring systems for all stages of the Games.

“The IOC should ensure that the 2016 Summer Olympics do not cause or exacerbate human and child rights abuses in Rio. It is time that the IOC lives up to the values declared in the Olympic Charter,” said Ignacio Parker, secretary general of Terre des Hommes.

The dossier – the fourth and most comprehensive to date – was launched as the IOC meets in Lausanne to discuss Agenda 2020, the strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement. The governing body will discuss the fundamental principles of sport at a time when football is mired in a Fifa corruption scandal, athletics is plagued by doping revelations and the Olympics is dogged by claims of human rights violations in host countries.



“With the IOC on its back foot, perhaps we’re actually witnessing a propitious moment for human rights groups to press for meaningful change,” said Jules Boykoff, a professor of political science at Pacific University.

“The Olympics have long provided local developers and politicians with an alibi to steamroll already marginalized communities … The IOC absolutely needs to start taking human rights more seriously. This is a no-brainer. The IOC tendency to foist plausible deniability on us has become undeniably implausible.”