Every life matters – Introduction

Public authorities and society are, to some extent, both victims and accomplices of and fighters against the violence that kills thousands of adolescents in Brazil, hundreds of whom in Ceará state. Homicides have soared to levels of a major epidemic: 816 boys and girls aged between 10 and 19 years old were killed in Ceará state in 2015, 387 of whom in the state capital, Fortaleza, according to its Public Security and Social Defense Secretariat.