“She had no one to go to, no one to help, so this is the only solution she found”

Bernardo said she looked for jobs and tried selling cosmetics and working as a waitress, but without a high school degree, the pay was minimal.

“I would get 150 reais ($75) for working all day, which would just pay the salary of someone to stay with my mother,” she said, after patiently feeding her mother a plate of reheated spaghetti.

“There comes a time when you have to make decisions to get what you want. You have to be strong.”