<p>Great posts, bclintonk. Of course, anyone who wears “nice” jewelry anyplace overseas is asking for trouble. I wear a cheap watch and a modest ($15) ring where I normally wear my wedding ring, and costume jewelry so that if someone really wants to steal it, they can have it. No designer or obviously upscale anything. Across-the-body handbag with only modest amounts of money and passport.</p>
<p>Mini, an actual person is trying to assess risk for an actual daughter. Many people have posted here with actual knowledge of the dire situation in Brazil, even for expat managers backed by wealthy foreign companies in terms of buying security.</p>
<p>Presenting wildly irrelevant ‘kidnapping’ data for Canada, clearly collected in totally different ways to that for other countries, doesn’t help anyone. Pushing a line that the US must by definition be at least as bad as anywhere else doesn’t help anyone either.</p>
<p>I am sure that even you, if it is your own health and life at stake, will assess Brazil vs Canada with a little more realism.</p>
<p>Americans look like Americans, and blonde Americans look like blonde Americans, and would likely not be confused with blonde Brazilians. We all have facial features affected by the muscles we use to speak our native language, such that English-speaking faces look different from Portuguese-speaking faces. In addition, of course, other things like skin color (blonde Brazilians would tend to be a little darker-skinned, though not always), clothing and hair styles, and the nature of one’s activity in the street as a tourist or visitor will make one stand out as a foreigner, particularly to criminals who are trained to look. </p>
<p>That does not mean I wouldn’t allow my own D to travel there. She was looking at a summer job in Brazil and we approved of the location and circumstances of her likely activities there as safe. There are plenty of poor people everywhere, but it’s the large concentration of them that makes Brazil unique.</p>
<p>“Mini, an actual person is trying to assess risk for an actual daughter. Many people have posted here with actual knowledge of the dire situation in Brazil, even for expat managers backed by wealthy foreign companies in terms of buying security.”</p>
<p>The point is we do not know the actual risk of kidnapping in Brazil relative to other places, because as you note so well (and I did too), the data is skewed. As I’ve already noted, both of my d’s went by themselves to “exotic locales” (from Egypt to Cambodia) beginning at age 16. My younger one lives in southeast Washington, DC, and I am pretty sure virtually everywhere else she has lived is “safer” than that, with the possible exception of her university campus. (But she moved off campus after her first year.)</p>
<p>Today, my older d. is safe, I think - she’s working in the Vatican library.</p>
<p>I hear there are a lot of pickpockets at the Vatican.</p>
<p>But they’d have to have a library card which is unlikely…</p>
<p>Am assuming she doesn’t live in the library 24/7.</p>
<p>
Yes, data can be skewed because it depends on what is tracked and how it is categorized. But one can do real life comparison…someone up thread already mentioned ransom assistance for people in Brazil, that’s a good data point. Another data point is that many banks in that region do not offer safety box services because of body parts they have found in those boxes during their regular audit. Is this something we would generally encounter in other regions? A place can be exotic and it can be safe, not every third world country is unsafe. It is not the general poverty which makes a place unsafe either, it is the disparity of wealth which encourages people to steal/kidnap/sell drug, and that’s what we are seeing in countries like Brazil and Mexico.</p>
<p>Cambodia is generally safe, Brazil is not generally safe. Foreign (and local) companies in Cambodia don’t need to take extraordinary precautions to protect their expatriate employees.</p>
<p>Anyway to let the expert statisticians decide - we could compare the price of kidnap insurance in Brazil vs. Canada.</p>
<p>You wanna try to insure a new car in southeast DC? Want to buy special insurance against getting shot? Or homeowners’ insurance against theft?</p>
<p>A strong case can be made for also discouraging your daughter from working in southeast DC. But it is not very relevant to those thinking about Brazil.</p>
<p>Relative risk is extremely relevant. If you want people to do a risk assessment, youneed a baseline to compare it to. (Hey - that’s why the insurance numbers can be a good approach.) </p>
<p>I’m thinking about the need for personal armed guards against the serial rapists at American universities. Might be an interesting approach. Or a rape/sexual assault insurance policy. (Might also tell us whether living in a fraternity/sorority is more dangerous.)</p>
<p>Actuarial data can be helpful. Of course the rates for homeowners insurance, flood insurance, auto insurance, varies by location and history. And I agree with sorghum. The risk of living in/attending school in an urban area with high crime rates is an understandable concern to parents of college students. But, IMO, that flip comments about armed guards and serial rapists is not amusing. It is unnecessary and unhelpful. Lets stay on topic.</p>
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<p>The point about skin color is just completely off-base. Brazil is a multiracial society. Especially in southern and southeast Brazil there are millions of people of purely or predominantly European ancestry–Portuguese, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, Ukrainian, you name it. Officially, 91 million Brazilians, or nearly half the population, are classified as “white.” Not all of these are fair-skinned and blonde, but many are. In the southern Brazilian states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, for example, an estimated 35% of the population is of predominantly or solely German ancestry; and German (of various dialects) is the second most widely spoken language in Brazil, after Portuguese. We have some friends who are southern Brazilians of German ancestry; the mom and both daughters are blonde and fair-skinned, to the point that when we are together, their daughters are often mistaken for sisters of my own blonde and fair-skinned daughters, and/or my daughters are mistaken for children of the blonde and fair-skinned Brazilian mom. Brazil also has a very large population of Asian descent; its population of Japanese ancestry is said to be the largest in the world outside Japan itself.</p>
<p>As for clothing and hair styles, once upon a time it was the case that the locals could spot an American anywhere in the world by their shoes, clothing, and hair styles. This is less and less true with the globalization of popular fashion. Brazilians wear Nikes and Levis, and there is nothing distinctively Brazilian about the hairstyles of our Brazilian friends, even when they are returning from an extended stay in Brazil, because their clothing and hair styles reflect global trends.</p>
<p>The good news, I suppose, it that there’s no reason to think street criminals in Brazil are especially looking to target tourists, much less Americans. This is largely a thing of the past; once upon a time Americans just had more money and that made them a prime target. Now street criminals in Brazil tend to be equal-opportunity wrongdoers; they’ll rob or do an “express kidnapping” on anyone who looks moderately affluent, e.g., has a nice cellphone or expensive-looking jewelry or clothing, or flashes a credit card or significant amounts of cash in making a purchase.</p>
<p>I would say no. My spouse travels to brazil frequently. The last two times he has heard gunfire from his hilton room. He would never allow our kids to go there based on what his Brazilian associate tells him. There is a real threat of kidnapping for ransom against Americans. Even if you are not wealthy anyone who can afford to study abroad appears wealthy to them. Even if the campus is safe what about on the way to the airport or out and about. They are even considering pulling the World Cup. This has been discussed based on the level of violence that exists. They do not have the security for such large crowds. Trust me if my husband is nervous it is a bad situation as he travels internationally every month.</p>
<p>My husband goes nowhere in the country without his Brazilian associate and a previously arranged driver. The driver is just as important as the associate. Cab drivers get ‘lost’ and you get robbed or kidnapped. Everything is paid with cash. Credit card fraud is rampant. I am sorry that is her only choice but I would check the state departments website also. If it was my daughter it would be a firm no. My husband flies everywhere and that is the one place he truly is nervous about. Egypt, turkey, china, Indonesia, Russia are all nothing compared to brazil.</p>
<p>The point was made up-thread that the risks in a rural, academic location might be very different from what a well-paid American exec with a multinational firm faces in Rio or SP. I cannot speak to that.</p>
<p>The point was also made, to the effect, that “you take precautions, like you would anywhere.” I can state that the precautions taken by my relatives working in Brazil are nothing that would be available to a typical college student studying abroad. </p>
<p>I was a female student, here and abroad, and spent a fair amount of time in NYC. I made sure I was not alone when I went out at night. I did not get drunk. I had my key ready. I did not shut my eyes on the subway. I knew that innocent-looking old ladies might be pickpockets. Etc., etc.</p>
<p>My relatives working in Brazil took other precautions not available to a college student – they had bars on their dwellings. Guns. Trained attack dogs. They spent time with the attack dogs to maintain the master relationship. They socialized in private clubs, not public places. They had live-in household help, because there always had to be somebody in the house. They had drivers, arranged through the corporation, but they also varied the routes, varied the cars, and frequently changed drivers, because the driver could go rogue on you. My female relative would not wear so much as simple gold ball earrings like a preschooler might wear here in the US. But, of course, it was still obvious to anybody that she was not a local. </p>
<p>If it were me, I would gladly send my daughter for a term in Portugal. I’d be leery of Brazil. My challenge would be, how to assess the differences between the risks she would encounter in the program location, and what I know of from my relatives working there in the cities. I weigh the potential risks against the potential benefits.</p>
<p>Portugal has little economic or political importance. Brazil is a large and growing market. The reason to learn Portuguese is to do business in Brazil, not Portugal.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s got a crime problem, and you have to be careful. But it’s also a vital and energetic place. It reminds me of how the US must have been 100 years ago.</p>
<p>I don’t think Brazil is anywhere near as dangerous as Egypt right now.</p>
<p>@ Mimi. Let me clarify. He left his valuables on a towel at the beach while he went swimming. When he returned the towel was there but the valuables were not. That is why I used the word stolen.</p>
<p>Clearly there are contrasting views on this topic. I am not well traveled - AT ALL, so it is great to hear all sides. My preference is for my daughter not to go. But at the same time, I have to share that a close British friend of mine told me her college daughter spent the summer in Brazil in Rio 2 years ago - independently, not a school based visit- she stayed in a vacant apartment of a friend of their family - and she had no trouble at all. Her DD is blonde, and attends the same University as my DD.</p>
<p>Also, a relative of mine put me in touch with a friend of his who is a native of and lives in Brazil. He emailed me and said that the place of study:</p>
<p>“is a very quiet city in the interior of Sao Paulo. The crime there is related to drugs (crack) but at very low level ghettos… I would see no problem … she only needs to stay away from people not related with her environment… the average student in her University seems to be medium to medium high social class which reduces risk with crime…”</p>
<p>At the same time, 3- 4 days ago, a soccer player was beheaded and his parts delivered to his wife on their doorstep. In April, a young woman was gang raped on a public transit bus, her male companion beaten. I honestly don’t know what to think. And to boot, DD is an adult - so if she wants to go and can figure out how to pay for it without me, then I may not have a say anyway. I am really really stressed over this!!!</p>