Portugal Situation Report Wednesday 5^th October 2022

Good morning – Today is Republic Day (Dia da República) which is celebrated on 5th October and commemorates the end of the monarchy and the establishment of Portugal as a Republic in 1910.

October 5th is in fact a date that has a “double” importance to Portugal. The Treaty of Zamora (5 October 1143) recognized Portuguese independence from the Kingdom of León and Castilla. A public holiday, which for 767 years until 1910 was always celebrated like a birthday of Portugal, is for many Portuguese today exactly the same birthday and a reason to remember their own and national history and identity.

Looking at various safety issues we published yesterday safety in the use of tractors. It is not only farmers that use these, but also those in rural communities, in the upkeep of their land.  Unfortunately every year there are injuries and deaths in the use of tractors which are largely preventable. It is important therefore to keep in mind that protective structures in case of rollover, such as the “Santo António” bow, provide protection and can prevent the death of the driver or reduce the severity of injuries. Also it is important to follow the various safety measures and of course avoid carrying passengers!

The season considered the most critical of rural fires and the one that mobilizes the largest number of means of combat ended on Friday 30 September, with a record of almost 110,000 hectares of burned forest, the highest value since 2017, and four deaths.

In a summer in which the drought rate was the highest since 2005 and in which there were high temperatures, the risk of fire was high, which led the Government to declare, in July, for the first time, a calamity situation in the entire continent and also the alert situation that took place on some days in July and August.

We are now in Level III of the DCEIR operational program for 2022, which means that the allocation of operatives is reduced to around 11,000, whereas under phase IV what is commonly referred to as the critical fire period there were around 13,000. However the number of aircraft remains the same at 60.

The weather forecast, certainly for the first half of October, remains at above average temperatures (yesterday reaching as high as C, which is certainly above average for this time of the year. Relative humidity levels are also generally low. As such it is extremely important to remain vigilant and be prepared in case of rural fires. As I said on KissFm Radio last Sunday

A reminder that from 3^rd October 2022 around 1,000 UK nationals living in Porto can now obtain a new post-Brexit residence card (under the Withdrawal Agreement) at the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) service post. Please note that there is a need to await for an email from SEF, to arrange the booking of an appointment, do not try and visit the office concerned as it will be a wasted journey.

With that please have a safe day

News

Use of recycled waste-water

Lisbon, Oct 04, 2022 (Lusa) – The Minister of the Environment and Climate Action, Duarte Cordeiro, stated that it is necessary to accelerate the capacity to provide wastewater, and considered that one of the biggest challenges for the country is to improve the “governance of water”. ”.

Recalling that this is the second worst year of drought since 1931, prompting warnings for a future with less water, Duarte Cordeiro insisted on the need to save water in all sectors, in a context in which it is estimated that it will rain 15% less, possibly minus 25% by the end of the century.

Speaking at the end of an initiative in Lisbon called “We have water”, dedicated to innovation in the sector and organized by “Águas do Tejo Atlântico”, Duarte Cordeiro stressed that more and more water has to be reused, adding: “to improve governance of this resource is one of our biggest challenges”.

It is necessary, he said, to reduce losses, reduce consumption, make better use of abstractions and accelerate reuse, and also invest in desalination in some parts of the country.

Of the 600 million cubic meters of water that are consumed per year, part of them must be reused, said Duarte Cordeiro, who then symbolically presided over the launch of a new Vira beer (Vira Stout) that is produced with recycled water, a project by “Tejo Atlântico” which has already been awarded.

Specialists from the sector participated in the initiative and a study was discussed that indicates that the Portuguese are very concerned about the lack of water (four out of five) and the vast majority consider it the first need, and the majority of people also think that there is an excessive and abusive consumption of water.

Despite being sensitive to the problem of water scarcity, only one in three Portuguese people adopts rational behaviour in the use of water, according to the study.

Drug trafficking

The judicial Police and Brazilian Federal Police tighten the siege of a group caught in Portugal with 320kg of cocaine disguised in a “large load of açaí”

A new joint operation by the two police forces is related to the seizure of a ship with 320 kilos of cocaine in Portugal in June, which made three detainees at the time.

The Judiciary Police, the Brazilian Federal Police and Europol carried out another joint operation, this time to gain further evidence against a group of drug traffickers detected in the June operation.

 

Portugal Safety and Security Report Wednesday 28^th September 2022

 

Good morning – Some good news for UK citizens in Portugal that after a long wait there is more positive news concerning the new residency card for British national. Yesterday the Minister of Internal Administration said this Monday that he hopes that the approximately 36,000 British citizens living in Portugal will have the new post-Brexit residence card by the end of the year. Centres are already operating on the mainland in Cascais and Loulé.

He stated that “By the end of the year, that is, until the 31st of December, we really hope to have responded to these 36,000 British citizens”, a announcing the opening of 13 more service points for British citizens from next month, in conjunction with the Agency for Administrative Modernization (AMA) and the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN). These will be in Lisbon, Faro, Marinha Grande, Pombal, Coimbra, Castelo Branco, Porto, Seixal, Santarém, Beja and Lagos. More will be announced in due course.

It is important to regularly check if you have received any emails from SEF asking you to arrange your appointment online and that you have your Brexit password for the SEF portal at hand. Once the centres are operating do not attempt to visit a centre to try and get an appointment as all appoints ate arranged direct with SEF through the BREXIT portal.

Turning to the weather – October promises to be, at least at its beginning, an extension of the already long summer, with the return of, the anticyclone positioning itself northwest of the peninsula, in a wedge in the Gulf of Biscay and blocking everything that can approach it from Continental Portugal, with this setup we’ll have east winds, very hot and dry, increasing rural fire risk. Unfortunately to all the models in this scenario it is very likely, the drought will continue and there’s no end in sight.

As such we must remain vigilant to the risk of rural fires taking all the relevant precautions. Again we emphasise the importance of obtain authorization before burning cut and piled debris and if approved to ensure all the safety measures are taken.

Related to this is the ongoing drought situation. Yesterday the government announced the creation of “a strategic reserve of water in the reservoirs associated with hydroelectric uses” identified in the diploma.

The Government determined, as of October 1, a temporary suspension in the water resources of 15 reservoirs, “until the minimum quotas of their useful capacity that will be established are reached”. This move is clearly aimed at ensuring the continuing supply of electricity to meet foreseeable demands. With drought conditions continuing therefore it is essential that we do everything possible to conserve water. Please follow the advice which we promote through our Facebook page from time to time.

Lastly the Minister of Internal Administration, José Luís Carneiro, has dismissed yesterday the disagreement of the League of Portuguese Firefighters (LBP) regarding the integration of these operatives in the new civil protection structure, considering that the firefighters will comply with the law in force.

The minister was reacting to statements by the president of the LBP, António Nunes, who on Saturday, on the side lines of the extraordinary meeting of the LBP national council, stated that, at the moment, the firefighters “do not feel comfortable with the integration of the new civil protection structure, with its sub-regional commands, refuse to integrate this situation and have their own operational organization”, wanting to remain as they are currently.

The new national structure of civil protection, which has regional commands, which took office very recently. There are five regional commands, and there will be 23 subcommands, corresponding to the inter-municipal communities from 1^st January 2023. This is a matter of organizing the national Civil Protection,” he explained.

“Another matter has to do with how firefighters and humanitarian organizations decide to organize themselves as firefighters. This is a matter for the autonomy of the associations themselves, naturally fulfilling the duties they have with the country’s civil protection, and with the integration in what corresponds to the national civil protection system”, he added.

Currently most firefighters are part of corporations (associations) which are privately owned and in each district are represented by federation representatives on the LBP. The LBP has no operational competence, this falling on the operational commanders of each brigade. The LBP is mainly responsible for continuity and regulation as far as the rules of the associations as well as fiscal and logistical matters are concerned.

The ANEPC has an overall responsibility of operational command through civil protection agents which include the firefighters, GNR, PSP etc. This issue needs to be resolved to ensure that the current integration continues in way that corresponds to the national civil protection system as the minister outlined.

With that have a safe week ahead.

 

News

Covid-19. Portugal exceeds 25 thousand deaths since the beginning of the pandemic

More than six thousand fatalities have been recorded since the beginning of the year, 40 of them in the last week. Portugal is the 39th country to exceed the barrier of 25 thousand deaths.

Portugal surpassed this weekend the 25 thousand deaths from Covid-19, more than two and a half years since the beginning of the pandemic, which had its first case and death in the country in March 2020.

According to DGS figures released this Monday, the country now has 25,008 fatalities, 40 of them in the last week. Since the beginning of the year, more than six thousand deaths from Covid-19 have been recorded.

The mortality of the pandemic has stabilized since the beginning of August, now standing at four weekly deaths per million inhabitants. The country currently has almost 5.5 million cases since March last year.

Portugal is thus the 39th country to register 25,000 victims of the pandemic, and is currently the 35th country with the most deaths per million inhabitants.

The USA is the country with the most victims of Covid-19, the only one with more than one million deaths, followed by Brazil, with about 685 thousand deaths, and India, with 528 thousand deaths.

In the latest report on the evolution of the pandemic, the DGS and INSA warned of a “possible trend reversal” in the number of cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection, but that Covid-19 mortality and hospital occupancy remain unchanged and stabilized. The number of new infections by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus per 100,000 inhabitants, accumulated in the last seven days, was 178 cases, with “a possible reversal of an upward trend” at the national level, according to the document from the Directorate-General for Health. (DGS) and the Ricardo Jorge Institute (INSA) released this Friday.

 

Sweden detected underwater explosions before Russian gas pipeline leaks

Sweden has detected two underwater explosions, “most likely due to detonations”, close to where leaks were detected in pipelines carrying Russian gas to Europe, a Swedish seismic institute announced today.

A first “massive energy emission” of a magnitude of 1.9 was recorded Sunday night at 02:03 local time (01:03 in Lisbon) in the south-east of the Danish island of Bornholm, said Peter Schmidt of the National Seismic Network. Sweden, to the French agency AFP. The Swedish institute recorded a second occurrence of magnitude 2.3 at 19:04 local time on Monday (18:04 in Lisbon), in the northeast of the island. “We interpret it as coming with the highest probability of some form of detonation,” Schmidt said.

Danish and Swedish authorities have detected leaks in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which Russia closed in early September, and in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was never put into operation due to a lack of authorization from Germany, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. . Despite not being operational, the two pipelines operated by a consortium of Russian giant Gazprom were full of gas.

Ukraine today accused Russia of responsibility for leaking gas pipelines, denouncing a “terrorist attack” against the European Union. “The large-scale gas leak from Nord Stream 1 is nothing more than a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression against the European Union,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak said on Twitter, quoted by AFP.

 

 

Portugal safety and security Report Wednesday 21^st September 2022

 

If ever there was an apt reminder of the need for beach safety, this was certainly realised last weekend when a total of 17 swimmers were rescued from the sea at Mira beach in Coimbra. Sea conditions were poor at the time.

So far this year there have been over 110 drownings in Portugal, the highest for 5 years with still three months to go. We have now come to the end of the bathing season on the mainland and most beaches are without lifeguards.

In the case of Mira beach most of those rescued were reported as foreigners, although it is not clear if they were tourists or residents.

We repeat the advice we have previously given on this topic and that is to enjoy the beach but at the same time take care when entering the water, having regards to sea conditions. Be particularly aware of the presence of rip currents, as well as when suddenly jumping into cold water, the possibility of not only experiencing a cold ‘shock,’ but also developing hypothermia.

Be aware that the sudden shock of the cold water can quickly impact your breathing, your heart rate and your blood pressure enough so that it can be life-threatening. You are then at a greater risk of drowning. Gasping for breath and a sudden spike in your heart/blood pressure can cause an immediate panic/stress for the swimmer, which impairs clear thinking and decision making during a life-threatening situation.

In another beach related incident this time in Viana do Castelo,  a 3 year old child “was left by the parents sitting on the sand, next to the water, while they went swimming”, having shortly afterwards “found her lying on the sand, possibly after being hit by a wave”. After being assisted at the scene, she was taken “as a precaution” to Viana do Castelo Hospital, confirming that the “child is fine. Parents should not need reminding how to look after their children – it should be common sense.

On Monday the hacker group Ragnar Locker, responsible for the computer attack on TAP at the end of last month, claimed to have published personal data of 1.5 million airline customers. This Monday 19th September 2022, a document with 581 gigabytes of information was released on the Dark Web. The data includes names, addresses, mobile phone numbers of customers, as well as confidential agreements and professional identity cards and information about incidents during operations.

According to the newspaper Expresso, TAP did not give in to the blackmail of the group of hackers, who say they continue to have access to the airline’s computer systems.

We recommend that TAP customers change their passwords and ensure strong passwords are used and that the dame password is not used on any other accounts especially bank accounts.

The Minister of Internal Administration announced yesterday that crime is decreasing this year compared to 2019, a period before the covid-19 pandemic marked by confinement, but “the intensity of violence is increasing that requires attention”. He said that the Government created the Commission for the Integrated Analysis of Juvenile Delinquency and Crime and the Public Security Police is developing, on its own initiative, a set of interventions, namely special operations in the most crowded places at night.

Monitoring crime in Portugal over the last 11 years, this comes as no surprise given the crime reports released by the police more recently. It is not the numbers that are increasing but the level of violence used. It is important that this is tackled especially late night violence seen in some of the larger cities.

With that please have a safe week. From our team at Safe Communities Portugal.

 

News

71-year-old pickpocket “earned” 10,000 euros since June

The Lisbon PSP detained a 71-year-old pickpocket for crimes of aggravated theft on buses, trams and trains. The man, already with previous convictions, was in preventive detention.

It selected victims who travelled on public transport in Lisbon and Porto. He used his advanced age to go unnoticed and followed them. Then, he stole their belongings “with great art and cunning from years of acquired criminal knowledge”, describes the PSP.

In 2019, the elderly man had already been investigated and detained in the city of Porto for crimes of the same nature. He was then sentenced to one year and two months in prison suspended for the same period.

In July, investigators from the Lisbon PSP realized that the man had returned to thefts inside buses, trams and trains between Lisbon and Porto.

The PSP team specially created and specialized for this type of crime set up a concerted action and put several investigators on the ground. On September 12, they managed to arrest the suspect, in the act of committing a crime, on Avenida 24 de Julho. Inside tram 15, he had stolen a wallet with money and documents from the inside of the pocket of a Scottish tourist’s shorts. The belongings were recovered and returned to the owner.

After the arrest, a search was carried out in the pension where the detainee was staying, and 1490 euros were seized, two stolen mobile phones – one of them in the metro, in Porto – and gold items worth 4500 euros, purchased with bank cards stolen from the victims, information that may still relate the defendant to other crimes.

However, it was possible to correlate it with 10 more qualified thefts with consistent and solid evidence of its authorship. His activity since June has earned him around 10 thousand euros in illicit income, estimates the PSP.

Since he had dual nationality from Portugal and a South American country, the suspect still travelled between European countries, where he also has criminal references, and practiced other thefts.

The Lisbon Criminal Investigation Judge, to whom the detainee was presented for the first interrogation, decreed that he should await trial in Preventive Prison.

Government will invest about €2 million in vehicles for the PSP and GNR proximity (community patrol) programs

 Lisbon, Sep 20, 2022 (Lusa) – The Government plans to invest around two million euros in vehicles “specifically intended for the PSP and GNR proximity programs”, namely Escola Segura, the Minister of Internal Administration announced today.

In the opening session of a seminar organized by the Public Security Police on the 30 years of existence of the Escola Segura program in Portugal, José Luís Carneiro said that this program continues to play a “very relevant role and requires permanent investment, whether in people, in their training, or in the means of work, with a view to improving the ability to intervene”.

“Within the scope of the Integrated Urban Security Strategy, on which we have been working, and which will very soon be put up for public discussion, the Escola Segura program will assume particular centrality. It is a new approach to urban security, based on the principles of prevention, proximity to the citizen, the promotion of local partnerships, the sense of opportunity for evaluation and intervention and the need to promote integration and interconnection between the different intervention programs and instruments on reality”, he explained.

In this sense, the minister advanced that the specific training of police officers assigned to proximity programs will be reinforced and that an investment of around two million euros is planned in vehicles specifically intended for proximity programs for the PSP and GNR, within the scope of programming, investments in the modernization and operation of security forces and services.

According to José Luís Carneiro, the PSP and GNR committed, in the last school year, more than 700 police officers and guards, who carried out 35,808 awareness-raising actions and 204 demonstrations of means, in addition to many thousands of hours dedicated to patrolling and policing the surroundings of school spaces.

The official said that in the last school year there was a decrease in criminal occurrences, with the majority of participations in the school environment related to situations of injuries or threats and offenses to physical integrity.

“Although the provisional crime numbers in 2022, when compared to 2019 – because the years 2020 and 2021 were atypical years, given the confinement – do not show, in general, worrying developments, it is on these crimes, demonstrative of greater violence, that we focus our concern,” he said.

José Luís Carneiro noted that after the pandemic there was “a tendency towards the emergence of behaviours of greater conflict, especially among young people, who go to nightclubs”, therefore, “a careful analysis and reflection” is necessary.

“It is essential that we study and understand this problem. The different dimensions associated with violence, criminality and juvenile delinquency must be worked on in an integrated and sustained way, so that we can understand, upstream, the problems and seek to find solutions and act on the causes”, he stressed.

As an example, the minister reported on the creation of the Commission for the Integrated Analysis of Juvenile Delinquency and Violent Crime, which has already presented guidelines and recommendations to the Government and which will be included in the Integrated Strategy for Urban Security.

 

 

Portugal Situation Report Wednesday 14^th September 2022

Good morning – As forecast there has been a dramatic change in weather with the focus being on tropical storms. This is the tropical storm season so these are expected and we will have to wait and see how many there will be and how many reach the Portugal mainland as “Hurricanes”. Daniel decreased in intensity considerably as it moved closer to Portugal and the affects were, with one or two exceptions, little more than from a normal winter storm.

The main areas affected by the rain and winds were in the centre and the north of the mainland, and although there were over 700 occurrences report to the ANEPC from midnight to 1600 hrs yesterday, most were relatively minor. One exception was, however, in Sameiro parish, Manteigas municipality Guarda District, where there was moderate damage to property and vehicles.  This will do little, however, to ease the drought situation, especially in the south of the country.

Hurricanes are different matters and as we have seen in the past have caused extensive damage and pose considerable risk to public safety when they hit populated areas. Luckily a full force Hurricane hitting the mainland is rare and most loose intensity beforehand, as they reach cooler waters.

Such storms if coinciding with ongoing wildfires present particular risks. Starting on 15 October 2017, winds from post-tropical cyclone Ophelia fanned wildfires in both Portugal and Spain. The wildfires have claimed the lives of at least 49 individuals, including 45 in Portugal and four in Spain, and dozens more were injured. In Portugal, more than 4,000 firefighters battled around 150 fires. The US National Hurricane Centre’s Tropical Cyclone Report on Hurricane Ophelia makes no mention of the fires, thus the associated fatalities are not included as part of the storm total.

Cyclone Vince from 8-11 October 2005 was the first known tropical cyclone to reach the Iberian Peninsula. Hurricane Leslie (2018) and Subtropical Storm Alpha (2020) are two more recent examples of tropical-like cyclones that impacted the Iberian Peninsula.

Leslie made landfall in the central region of Portugal, resulting in extensive material damage in Figueira da Foz, and placed thirteen districts under red warning due to strong winds and waves. It was considered the biggest storm to hit Portugal since 1842.

The Azores is more exposed, but fortunately in this case the trajectory of Hurricane Danielle meant that it did hit the archipelago – unlike Hurricane Lorenzo in September 2019 which caused extensive damage.

It is therefore important to be prepared. For this reason we have developed a page on our website which is based on government information on tropical cyclones, how to be prepared and precautions to take.  Basic advice is to follow and study the evolution of a cyclone/hurricane through weather reports. Usually there is plenty of warning, although they can change course at the last minute. This can be downloaded here.

https://www.safecommunitiesportugal.com/find-information/environment-and-weather/cyclones/

At this time of the year we are moving from fires to possible floods. One potential danger is the impact of heavy rain on locations that are downhill and downstream from burned areas and are therefore highly susceptible to Flash Flooding and Debris Flows, especially in, and near, steep terrain.

We published an awareness post about this on Monday on our Facebook page and the following, day the President of Camara Municipal de Manteigas, gave the following statement, accompanied by photographs, of the considerable damaged caused by flash floods and landslips in the municipality overnight.

Nothing can be done to prevent the rain but knowing your local area and possible vulnerable points in such storms, and therefore being prepared, can do much in reducing casualties and even damage to property.

Our team wishes you a Safe week ahead

News

Pedrógão Grande fires trial comes to an end with all defendants acquitted

The Leiria Court sought to find responsibility for the deaths and injuries of the June 2017 fire.

Despite the prosecution’s accusation, the court found that there was no link between the defendants’ actions and/or omissions and the unique phenomenon that happened and caused the deaths in the 2017 fire.

The panel of judges looked at the disorganized forestland utilization and at the weather factors, concluding: “these fatalities happened and would happen”, regardless of the actions of mayors, firefighters and involved companies employees. They would happen regardless of the existence or not of the fuel management lane on national road 236, according to the panel of judges.

The Court found that at the time of the fires, “the municipality of Pedrógão Grande comprised 72% of its area with dense continuous forest areas, essentially consisting of maritime pine, eucalyptus and acacia, with high fuel load and highly flammable”.

According to the court, “between 8:00 pm and 8:20 pm on June 17, 2017, in the area of Estrada Nacional (EN) 236-1, which connects Castanheira de Pera to Figueiró dos Vinhos, a convective column of the fire, ‘a downburst’, fell vertically towards the ground, from a height of about 13 kms. This resulted in a ‘rain’ of projections and generated wind of great intensity carrying particles of fire and incandescent material, which after hitting the ground, blew radially in all directions, with speeds of the order of 100 to 130 km/h”.

The judicial magistrates considered that this situation presented “fire intensity values (radiation) in the order of 60,000” kilovolts/meter, in addition to the flame length of up to 80 meters, with temperatures in the order of 900 to 1,200 degrees Celsius, and dense smoke that nullified visibility.

The court clarified that “the formation and subsequent fall of the convective column/’downburst’ described above is an extreme, rare and unpredictable pyro-meteorological phenomenon, and it was the first time that such a phenomenon was recorded in Portugal and throughout the European continent.

The defendants were the commander of the Volunteer Firefighters of Pedrógão Grande, Augusto Arnaut, then responsible for rescue operations, two employees of the former EDP Distribuição, José Geria and Casimiro Pedro, and three workers from Ascendi (Rogério Mota, José Revés and Ugo Berardinelli). Also the former mayors of Castanheira de Pera and Pedrógão Grande, Fernando Lopes and Valdemar Alves, respectively. And the mayor of Figueiró dos Vinhos, Jorge Abreu, as well as the former vice-mayor of Pedrógão Grande José Graça and the then responsible for the Forestry Office of this municipality, Margarida Gonçalves, were also among the defendants.

At issue in this trial were criminal charges of criminally negligent homicide and negligent offence against physical integrity.

More than 300 commanders, command elements and association leaders of Portuguese firefighters were present at the entrance of the court this morning to support Commander Augusto Arnaut of the Pedrógão Grande firefighters, who was one of the defendants in this case. 

PSP recorded about 2,300 criminal incidents in schools in the last school year

Lisbon, Sep 13, 2022 (Lusa) – The PSP recorded around 3,300 occurrences in schools, 2,300 of which were criminal, during the last school year, an increase compared to the last two years, marked by confinements resulting from the covid-19 pandemic, the PSP reported today.

Data from the Public Security Police were released on the day the 2022/2023 school year begins and on which the PSP guarantees that it will dedicate “special attention” to the safety of the 3,100 schools, involving a total of 150,000 teachers and non-teaching staff and more than 900,000 students, in its area of responsibility.

The figures are  ​​lower than those of the last school years before the beginning of the pandemic, in 2019.

The PSP underlines that within the scope of Escola Segura, which this year completes 30 years of existence, special attention is paid to the surroundings of schools.

In addition to the Escola Segura teams, with police officers specifically trained to carry out proximity policing in a school environment, the PSP mobilizes and complements its activity with other operational skills, such as auto policing teams, traffic inspection and road safety and criminal investigation, according to that police.

The PSP specifies that these teams prioritize “visibility and proximity”, “prevention of criminal offenses” and “information and awareness of the school community, through group interactions in the school environment”.

In each academic year, the PSP carries out around 13,500 awareness-raising and crime prevention actions, covering around 400,000 students from the different levels of public and private non-university education.

The PSP stresses that the challenges of the school year that begins today are to reinforce the behaviour of drivers and pedestrians, fully resume information and awareness actions for the school community, continue to support the school community in detecting signs of victimization (both in physical and virtual), encourage mediate reporting to the PSP for immediate verification and maintain the ability to identify cyberbullying situations as early as possible.

The PSP also provides an email address Escolasegura@psp.pt for reporting crimes and clarifying issues related to safety in schools.

Slavery

50 million people worldwide in modern slavery

The United Nations says there are almost 28 million slaves worldwide and of these, more than three million are children. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the number of people forced to work has increased by 10% in the last four years.

In 2022, according to the United Nations, there are 2 7.6 million people in slavery around the world.

According to the same source, this number has increased significantly over the last few years, and, in the last four years alone, it has increased by 10%. Of these millions of people who are forced to work without any dignity, 3.3 million are children.

These figures now published raise serious concerns among world entities, which point to extreme poverty, wars, climate change and the pandemic as the main causes of this global scourge.

“We know we have to protect people from the vulnerabilities that are at the heart of forced labour. We have to improve recruitment practices, so they are fair and ethical. We have to strengthen labour inspection and law enforcement. All these things, we know what works, we’re just not doing it enough,” said Guy Ryder, Director General of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

According to the ILO, the vast majority of situations currently taking place in the richest countries on the planet, such as Dubai and China. The country on the Arabian Peninsula has been the subject of intense scrutiny due to the situations reported by several workers involved in the construction work of the stadiums that will be used in the Football World Cup.