Trabalho infantil não é legal!

During carnaval you could see a lot of kids selling drinks and food, along with pretty much everyone else. Even outside of carnaval you see them selling Tic-Tacs or attacking cars with water and squeegees at intersections. In Olinda, Luciana ran into a social worker who was shooing kids of the street. She told us that the government pays parents to keep the kids from working and going to school (apparently only with partial success). The social worker knew pretty all the kids by their name and was upset whenever she saw one.

When Jennifer and I went for a stroll in Recife Antigo we saw a group of people holding signs and herding a bunch of kids enclosed with a rope (like some of the samba schools do) and the were handing out stickers saying that "Child labor is not legal". It's become one of our favorite expressions whenever we see a working kid.