Processos de medicalização de crianças e adolescentes nos relatórios do Unicef.

Abstract

This article, with a genealogical approach and Michel Foucault’s tools, discusses the practices of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Brazil geared towards children and adolescents in relation to the effects of medicalization of life. It is a historical and documentary research on reports produced by UNICEF Brazil, national head office of the multilateral agency. In the set of practices of that agency, those specific to medication of children and adolescents are highlighted. The documentary analysis allows us to assert that even when the practices prescribed in the reports aim at promoting, assuring, and protecting the rights of children and adolescents, they are articulated to a medicalization plan, through hygienist interventions and governance of conducts. In that way, paradoxically, the practices that promote rights of that agency end up forging control and health, being a new challenge referring to the problems reported in childhood and youth.