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When he took office in 2005, President Tabaré Vázquez said his government would take special measures to preserve human rights, but his administration´s public safety policies have failed to put people first. Luis Pedernera is a member of the Legal and Social Studies Institute of Uruguay, which is composed of human rights lawyers who deal with issues such as the imprisonment of minors, freedom of speech, and economic, social and cultural rights. After taking a tour of the Barrio Sur, and the problems tied to drug dealing there, we asked Pedernera if he thought Montevideo is a violent capital. "In my opinion, no," he said. "Normally, Uruguayans are nice people, who worry about their neighbors, but the penal system by definition breaks these community ties." In the 1990s, right-wing governments had widely applied repressive policies to the population, such a 1995 public safety law. As in many other countries in the world, a generalized feeling of insecurity and fear has led to support for these measures. As a result, Uruguay´s prisons are bursting at the seams. Vázquez´s government has found no solution to the problem. His administration has been at odds with Pedernera´s legal rights organization over its harsh criticism of prison conditions. "They haven´t looked with an open mind that progressives should have," said Pedernera. "They don´t understand that we are an independent organization that works only in the defense of human rights. The left hasn´t figured out how to get rid of that culture that makes prisoners into society´s last slaves, forgetting that they are also persons." Children´s rights "If a police officer finds here, in central Montevideo, a child with ‘a suspicious look’ — dirty, with old clothes, for example — he could take him to jail. The center of town is a tourist zone." Pedernera added that many Uruguayans support these policies. "That´s why we´re asking the left not to copy the dynamics of the right, which figures that greater repression is the solution to social conflicts." Nevertheless, there have been some advances. The Prison Humanization Law, approved by this regime, calls for sentence reduction for prisoners who work or participate in vocational or educational training . This is also a way to free up space in the overcrowded prisons, which in some cases are built for 900 prisoners but hold 3,000. "For every day of work and study, it´s one less day in prison," Pedernera explained. Pedernera said the prisoners themselves called for education and work in the first place, "breaking down many prejudices with their demand." Economic crisis and human rights Uruguay is no exception to the human rights crisis. Pedernera said this has a "terrible" effect on human rights in the country. He said public policies are seeking to save banks and not marginalized sectors. "The banks´ crimes are not persecuted like those of minors. On average, an adolescent´s crime costs about US$100, and is committed without a firearm in 98 percent of the cases. The damages caused by banks are much higher, because to save these institutions, the state takes funds out of social sectors. I´m not interested in saving banks, but people, human lives." "If we don´t think that the main problem is redistributing wealth — which is always in the same hands — the system will continue being the same: the rich and the banks will be saved and the crisis will be paid for by the same people as always." Further information
"Poverty is worst with children in Uruguay," said Pedernera, who specializes in children´s rights. "Half of children from 0 to 5 years old are born in poor places. They are hit with the consequences of the citizens´ safety policy, and in the prisons where they are locked up, they are abused, drugged, tortured."