A new paradigm was introduced to Brazilian legal culture by means of the 1988 Federal Constitution, the Children’s and Adolescents’ Statute (Law 8,069/90) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by Brazil on September 24, 1990. This paradigm was inspired by the conception of children and adolescents  as true subjects of rights, in a peculiar condition of development. Brazilian Law may be divided into two phases, before and  after 1988. The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 constitutes a legal watershed in terms of the democratic transition and  of the institutionalization of human rights in the country. Baixar arquivo