"Ruty Pereira has no shortage of tasks to keep her busy at home. But here she is, seated in the front row of a meeting at her local community center. Paintings of balloons and clouds decorate the walls. Pereira's 10-year-old daughter, Tamara, is perched on her lap. The girl's mouth hangs open slightly. Her arms are bent, locked at the elbows. There are other moms here, sitting beside their children who are around the same age and of similar affect."
"Over the last decade, the women in this room have gone from feeling voiceless and powerless to being outright activists, banding together to do something that they might never have imagined. They are demanding that the Brazilian government compensate them for what they say was a failure to protect them from a notorious disease. They want payback, they say. They want reparations for their children."
It is a bright Thursday morning in Maceio, eastern Brazil, where mothers gather at a community center with their children who show severe neurological impairments. Many children exhibit microcephaly and limited limb movement after in utero exposure to the Zika virus. Mothers such as Ruty Pereira and leader Alessandra Hora dos Santos have organized over the last decade, transforming from voiceless individuals into activists. The group demands government compensation and reparations for what they say was a failure to protect them from the epidemic. Families seek financial support and recognition for lifelong care needs and the harms their children endure.
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]