All images ©Kevin Moloney 1995-1996
All images ©Kevin Moloney 1995-1996
In 1994 a young man who had grown up in Vigário put his sociology degree to use and opened a community center in a home where eight of the twenty-one chacina victims were found. Though its founder Caio Ferraz (left) is in exile in the United States due to threats on his life possibly made by police under investigation for the murders, the Casa de Paz community center serves families such as the Da Silvas with job training programs and medical care. Ferraz was the first graduate of a pretigious state university from Vigário Geral.
One of many young favelados who take part in the drug trade found in most Rio slums walks with an automatic rifle behind a practicing carnaval drum corps. The cocaine trade attracts many young men in the slums for the quick money it can produce. The drum corps was one of the many activities sponsored by the Casa de Paz.
A group of Rio state police patrol the streets of Vigário during one of many raids intended to intimidate members of the Red Command drug ring. After the deadly 1993 raid, many residents scramble for home when the police are seen. On this day no shots were fired, but hidden drug traffickers tossed strings of firecrackers to spook the nervous police.
The warring police and drug trade often recruit from the same population of undereducated and poor young men, offering a choice between impunity and low $120 per month pay as a police officer, or fast cash and a short life as a drug trafficker.
Young women practice typing skills in one of many job training classes offered by the Casa de Paz. Ferraz hoped to help residents escape the circle of poverty and poor education that keeps children in the favelas and draws them to the drug trade.
A physician from the French Doctors without Borders relief organization attends a young boy with an ailing ear while mom sits nearby with an infant child. The organization maintains a permanent clinic at the Casa de Paz.
Aline da Silva, one of seven daughters of Absolom and Somália da Silva, draws on the floor of the family’s living room. Paper, pens and even furniture are scarce. The family has difficulty affording the small fees and supplies needed to send their daughters to school.
Somália da Silva walks two of her four school age daughters, Lizandra, left, and Milani, to an underfunded public school one morning. Two of the girls attended classes in the morning and another two in the afternoon, requiring her to make four trips each day through the unsafe streets of the slum. In addition she faces family chores and laundry taken in as a source of income.
Somália comforts daughter Jessica in the kitchen of the family home while Aline, right, waits for lunch. Pregnant with a first child at 15 — a son taken by his father over 15 years earlier — Somália had no idea birth control existed until pregnant with her seventh child. She tried birth control pills, but poor education led to improper use and an eighth child. After her most recent daughter, Somália had her tubes tied to prevent more pregnancies.
Daughters Aline, top, and Erica peek under the bedroom door as their mother dresses for her wedding. Somália never wed Absolom due to nearly constant pregnancies, but overcame the embarrassment of being married with a “big belly” while pregnant with her last child. The couple was married in a tiny Catholic church across the dirt street from their home after nearly 15 years together.
Somália da Silva settles into bed with six daughters (Lizandra is completely covered at lower left) while pregnant with a seventh. With only one bed in the back bedroom, the girls must sleep on a pile of blankets on the floor. The Da Silvas keep the whole family in the room furthest from the street during the night for fear of frequent stray bullets and police raids on the slum.
