highest levels of inequality globally; the greatest gaps existed between Black and white people, especially women, in terms of income and rates of employment. Despite a slight above-inflation increase in the minimum wage, and the expansion of the Bolsa Familia, Brazil’s social welfare programme and one of the world’s largest cash transfer programmes, the richest 1% of the population still owned almost half the country’s wealth, according to the World Bank. RIGHT TO HEALTH The number of excess deaths recorded between January and mid-July was 48,515 (18% more than expected). This was attributed to under-reporting of Covid-19 cases and its long-term effects, overcrowding in hospitals and health centres, and people experiencing sudden or chronic illness not seeking care due to fear of contracting Covid-19. According to the Ministry of Health, maternal mortality led to 477 deaths between January and May, with Black and Indigenous women disproportionally affected. The rate of maternal mortality among Black women was double that among white women. RIGHT TO FOOD Food insecurity disproportionally affected Black families; 22% of homes headed by Black women faced hunger. More than 70 million people suffered from food insecurity and 21.1 million (10% of the population) faced hunger. The government’s Brazil Without Hunger plan aimed to reduce poverty by 2.5% and remove the country from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Hunger Map by 2030. RIGHTS TO HOUSING AND WORK Systematic racism and sexism continued to restrict the rights to adequate housing and decent work. Of households headed by Black women, 63% were below the poverty line. In 2022, 33% of the population were still below the poverty line, with 6.4% living in extreme poverty; 100 million people still lacked sanitation and easy access to water. Data from the Ministry of Social Development showed that 3 million families benefiting from The State of the World’s Human Rights Bolsa Familia were lifted above the poverty line between March and September. The programme assisted 21.4 million families in 2023. The housing deficit remained high, with at least 215,000 people experiencing homelessness, according to the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Brazil had 11,403 favelas (slum neighbourhoods in major cities), where around 16 million people (12% of Brazil’s population) lived in 6.6 million households. A large proportion of the population did not have access to a minimum wage. According to the Abrinq Foundation, 50.8% of children up to 14 years (22.3 million) lived in households with a per-capita income of up to half the minimum wage, an increase of 2.7 million compared with 2022. Of these, 10.6 million (24.1%) lived on a per-capita household income of up to a quarter of the minimum wage. The rate of unemployment fell from 9.2% in 2022 to 7.7% in the third quarter of the year (8.3 million people). There were 39 million people working in the informal sector. During the year, the National Ombudsperson of Human Rights’ Office received complaints about 3,422 cases of work analogous to slavery, 3,925 cases of labour exploitation, and 1,443 institutional practices that violated human rights. RIGHT TO EDUCATION A UNICEF study showed that 2 million children and adolescents (10%) were not attending school in Brazil in 2023. The main reasons were child labour (48%) and learning difficulties (30%). Other factors included teenage pregnancy (14%) and racism (6%). Of children not attending school, 63% were Black. The Congress extended until 2033 its quota system, an affirmative action for university admission, and specifically included quilombolas (see below, Quilombolas) among the beneficiaries. Violence in schools increased. By the end of October, there were 13 episodes of violent attacks with weapons in schools (30% of all incidents in the past 20 years), including 105