The Pastoral da Criança acts mainly in the surrounding areas of the big cities and in poverty and misery areas in middle and large size Brazilian towns, both in urban and rural environments and indigenous areas.

          According to IPEA - The Institute for Economic Applied Research - Brazil has recorded, along the last years, a reduction in the poverty and indigence indexes. However, in the end of the 1990´s, 33% of the Brazilian population still figured among the poor. In the turn of the new millennium, 22 million people - or 13% of the population -were still regarded indigent.

          One of the reasons that might explain this situation is the huge difference in revenue distribution in the country. In 1999, 10% of the richest Brazilians held 50% of the total income for Brazilian families, while the 50% poorer shared only 10% of the revenue. Unemployment, lack of homes and food, forced migrations are some of the effects of this inequality. The first victims are usually women and children. That is why the actions promoted by the Pastoral da Criança are guided mainly to the needed communities and families, where the highest infant mortality index is. Every year it causes the death of more than 134 thousand victims under the age of 5 (UNICEF-SMI/2001, referring to the year of 1999).