This video is based on the factsheet Brazil: Human Rights in Times of Austerity, researched by CESR, INESC, and Oxfam Brasil, and illustrates that advances in tackling poverty and human rights deprivations in Brazil are at risk from a series of harmful and severe austerity measures put in place by the government starting in 2015. While aimed at tackling spiking deficits, these initiatives are already deepening socioeconomic inequalities in Brazilian society, with particularly disproportionate impacts on those already disadvantaged. Constitutional Amendment 95/2016 (EC 95), known as the “Expenditure Ceiling Act," is particularly far-reaching in its harm to human rights. Commencing in 2017, this act took the unprecedented step of freezing real public spending for 20 years.
One year into Brazil’s "New Fiscal Regime," the video shows that EC 95 has diverted significant resources from the most important social programs towards debt service payments, threatening to exacerbate already extreme levels of economic inequality. These fiscal decisions put at risk the basic social and economic rights of millions of Brazilians, including the rights to food, health and education, while exacerbating gender, racial and economic inequalities. It also presents evidence showing that alternatives—such as more progressive taxation and tackling tax abuses—are readily available.
Video by Luke Holland at Assume Nothing Media.