Abstract:
The article carries out a historical analysis that crosses three contexts: a) the colonization of Portuguese America; b) the immigration process that began in the 19th century; and c) the policy of the 20th century welfare state. Boys as pages and cabin-boys and girls as orphans of the king were a constant presence on ships in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 19th century, they immigrated with their families, as part of the eugenics segregation policy, which sought to whiten the country. In the 20th century, this process took the form of the broad institutionalization of minors with a view to containing social conflicts. For thousands of children, the welfare state was a policy that took them out of their families and into forced labor. Thus, the existence of human trafficking for economic and eugenic reasons is not something recent, but a process experienced in other historical moments, which continued during the 20th century, not only in Latin America, but also in European countries as a result of the policy of salvation of childhood and the parens patriae movement.
Keywords:
Childhood history; Welfare State; Minorism; Eugenics; Hygienism