O PROGRAMA DE ERRADICAÇÃO DO TRABALHO INFANTIL (PETI) NO MUNICÍPIO DE PONTA GROSSA – PR: UMA AVALIAÇÃO SOBRE A POLÍTICA PÚBLICA DE ENFRENTAMENTO AO TRABALHO INFANTIL (2010)

Abstract

The present study aimed to identify and analyze the potential impacts of the Program for the Eradication of Child Labor (PETI) in the lives of children and adolescents and their contracting families in the municipality of Ponta Grossa, in the year 2010. Such program constitutes itself as strategic public policy of the federal Government to address the problem of child labor, which is understood as one of multiple expressions of the social issue. The developed research starts from a historical analysis of evolution and reconfiguration of child labor in different societies, highlighting their functionality in the capitalist logic, in its context of crises involving unemployment and job precariousness. It was also analysed the legal network to combat child labor, the Brazilian social protection system and the income transfer programs that compose it, positioning PETI in this context. With reference to the institutional documents and related laws it rescued in a descriptive way the implementation of this program and the axes that guide its operation. At the end it were analyzed the impacts of the Program for families and for children and adolescents, in a dialectical relationship of technical and political dimensions, from three sources of information: observations of the external evaluator; quantitative and qualitative approaches, and data from context, history, relationships, representations and participation, enabling the crossing of multiple information sources. It was concluded at the end, that the PETI was established as a strategic and pioneer program in tackling child labor and requires a systematic assessment to identify its elements of weakness which subsidize reformulations to make it more able to facilitate the removal of children and adolescents from the workplace, guaranteeing them the right to full protection. It was highlighted the importance of the need for continuous development of the program as a priority factor to confront this problem, linking their actions with other policies that take account of all the elements inherent in this social issue.