Essay Sample about Favelas in Rio de Janeiro

📌Category: Americas, World
📌Words: 670
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 09 April 2022

Can you imagine a life in a small house, with no electricity, water, or food? I’m sure you can’t. Imagine not being able to drink water whenever you’re thirsty, live in a small space, crime, overcrowding, bad health care, and unemployement. It’s pretty hard to imagine, isn’t it? But that’s exactly the case for lots of people that live in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Favelas are slums or a shanty town, built in a very unstable way on the outskirts of Rio. Favelas have a lot of serious problems such as crime, lack of education, lack of infrastructure, public health etc… There are three main challenges facing people who live in the favelas of Rio. Crime, overcrowding, and unemployement. 

Crime is a huge issue facing people who live in the favelas of Rio with the most common problems being drug selling and abuse, corruption and bribery, robbery, mugging and other violent crimes. According to Numbeo.com, which is a data collection site, the crimes which are perceived as being the most frequent by people in Rio are listed and regularly updated. Corruption and bribery earn first place at a level 92.68 (with zero being non existent and 100 being extremely high). Violent crimes such as assault and armed robbery get a score of 90.35 and drug dealing and use is also very high at 82.82. This is a problem because first of all, the people are directly affected if they use drugs or are robbed, but also it is more complicated to stop these crimes because of the  corruption and bribery. For example the police might not want to arrest criminals because they might fear for their own lives or be payed to leave them alone. This creates a neverending cycle. 

Another issue facing people that live in the favelas is overcrowding which has such effects as increase of disease and insufficient sanitation. According to Urban Environments website, published by the BBC, the population density of the favelas is 37,000 people per sq. km. This affects problems of sanitation because there are not enough facilities and sometimes opens sewage runs which brings diseases and illnesses to people living in these slums. Some of the diseases and illnesses spread through poor sanitation are, diarrhea which causes 480,000 childhood deaths each year and is linked to viruses, bacteria, and protozoans. Cholera and dyssentery are also spread in overcrowded locations. However, these diseases mentionned are not a problem in places with proper sanitation. For example, dyssentery spreads when waste matter is not properly filtered out of water. Diarrhea caused by different viruses, bacteria, protozoae is reduced by proper hand washing and avoiding any contact with human waste which is so much harder in conditions of overcrowding and poor sanitation.

Unemployment is a third huge issue facing people that live in the favelas, because it affects many aspects of a community’s ability to address problems. According to Internet Geography, 20% of the working population in the favelas is unemployed. This has an effect on the poverty in the area and means that there are fewer opportunities, a lower rate of nutrition and fewer options for making a better life. Also, one-third of the workers in Brazil, are in the informal sector, which means their jobs are not secure. This means that they cannot access bank financing for housing or plan for the future. When people's jobs are insecure, and when they have limited access to financial product such as bank loans, this continues the cycle of poverty. If people cannot maintain a stable job and create more income and if they do not have access to money to start businesses and invest in economic opportunities, they are stuck living day to day and paycheck to paycheck. Also when people are unemployed, they will turn to crime or blackmarket buying and selling to survive. So we can say that unemployment also encourages more crime.

In conclusion, it is clearly evident that crime, overcrowding, and unemployment are some of the biggest issues standing in the way of a better future in Rio. We should work together to get access to basic necessities for all, such as water, food, shelter, and safety so that people can pursue better jobs, education, and think about making a better future for themselves and their families. Let’s work on this together for a better society for all!

+
x
Remember! This is just a sample.

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

Order now
By clicking “Receive Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails.