Para além do prato vazio: a multidimensionalidade do direito à alimentação e a interdependência dos direitos sociais

Abstract

This research is based on the premise that the right to food is still viewed by legal documents from a merely quantitative and qualitative conceptualization, failing to take into account its other dimensions and the interdependence between social rights. The work has a qualitative approach, with a descriptive and propositional objective. The descriptive character sought to demonstrate the current state of the art, the result of bibliographic and documentary research. The propositional character was presented in two moments: from the definition of the dimensions of the right to food and with emphasis on the idea that social rights are interdependent and can positively or negatively influence the satisfaction of others. Given the empirical nature inherent to the line of research in which this work was developed, the need to carry out a case study was seen. Thus, Emergency Aid was chosen as the object of this study, with the purpose of assessing whether the provision of income during the pandemic period, carried out by this public policy, proved to be sufficient in view of the country's food situation. Aid was chosen because it is the main public assistance policy in force during the health crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the analysis went through three moments: decisions taken before the aid came into force; the changes that the policy underwent during the pandemic and the food situation during its validity, with the comparison of data collected in 2021 and 2022 by the PenSSAN Network. After completing the work, it was understood that, although some policies, programs and actions deal with food beyond the quantitative and qualitative nature, this treatment is very superficial and is not capable of demonstrating the other dimensions of food and the existing deficiencies . Furthermore, the demonstration of interdependence with other social rights was limited to the rights to health and education, failing to correlate food with other social rights. Adding to the proposition of this research, there is the correlation of food with deficiencies in three other social rights: work, housing and transport, showing that interdependence goes beyond that presented regarding health and education. It is understood that despite the transformations it has undergone, the right to food is still not seen broadly and the fight against hunger and the food situation in the country is still limited to the distribution of income to purchase food. This approach, in this understanding, did not prove to be sufficient in the face of the problem of hunger and the analysis of Emergency Aid corroborated this idea since, despite having passed on values to the population, the policy proved to be insufficient in combating food insecurity experienced during the period pandemic in the country.