From assets to actors: Reassessing the integration of girls in anti-gang initiatives in Rio de Janeiro

Increasing attention is being paid internationally to the nexus of development, youth and poverty and, in particular, there is rising concern in many international institutions about a perceived ‘crisis of youth’ and connections between youth unemployment and crime, violence and social unrest (Jones and Chant 2009: 185). Exacerbated by fear surrounding the idea of a demographic ‘youth bulge’ in many developing countries, which focuses on ‘too many young men with not enough to do’ (Mabala 2011: 161), NGO and government interventions all too often aim to simply ‘contain or entertain’ young people (ibid.), providing distraction for young men who are assumed to be vulnerable to quick thrills, risk taking and violence. This chapter challenges the a priori focus on young men as victims and perpetrators of insecurity and suggests that youth-violence reduction initiatives need to broaden their focus to incorporate young women and girls in a more thoughtful way, informed by consistent gender analysis. Drawing on Risley’s critique of the ‘gender gap’ in Argentinean research and practice (Risley 2006), I highlight the disjuncture between treatment of violence that occurs in the public sphere in Brazil and that which occurs in ‘private’, with the former privileged and prioritised in social justice discourse and activism.