Brazilian Authorities to ‘Crack Down’ on Parties Encouraging Teen Promiscuity
Brazilian authorities are "cracking down" on dance parties popular among teenagers "usually from poorer neighborhoods" where "revellers [take] part in underage ... unprotected" and promiscuous sex, the London Independent reports. At the parties, called "funk balls" because they play a hip-hop style of music called "funk" in Brazil, "scantily clad partygoers mimic sex acts in choreographed dances to a pulsating 'funk' beat. The music is accompanied by controversial, rapped lyrics containing sexual references," according to the Independent. Police officers and commissioners from Rio de Janeiro's family court last weekend were ordered by family court Judge Siro Darlan to increase their monitoring of the parties in the city after a 14-year-old girl became pregnant and tested positive for HIV after attending one of the balls. The Independent reports that the girl was playing a "variation on musical chairs" commonly played at the parties in which "girls -- often wearing microskirts without underwear -- sit on boys' laps when the music stops." Vera Larouche, director of a Rio-based charity that works closely with low-income people, said, "[Girls] have sex with more than one boy in a night, get pregnant and then don't know who the father is," adding that she knows of "at least eight" other teenage girls who became pregnant after having sex at one of the parties. Darlan is planning criminal proceedings against the organizers of the party where the girl said she became pregnant and also against the girl's parents. Funk balls began about 20 years ago in Rio but are now common in cities throughout the country (Eveleigh, London Independent, 3/14).
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