The Perfect Storm to Destroy a Society's Female Youth
A harmful government and toxic history of machismo and racism make Brazil a terrible place to be a girl
In August 2020, a 10 year-old girl who was raped by her uncle had an abortion in Brazil. Abortions in Brazil are illegal except in cases of rape and where the pregnant female is at medical risk. As such, the abortion was legal. However, the girl’s name and whereabouts were exposed by a conservative anti-abortion group. She was accosted at the hospital where she performed the abortion and harassed in the digital sphere.
While the harassment of the child by Bolsonaro aligned trolls grabbed the international media’s attention, the child rape numbers in Brazil are hitting records. In early 2020, the government of the Brazilian state of Parana published a report claiming “there are a record number of rapes [in Brazil] and the majority are girls under 13 [...] Four girls per hour are raped.” Disturbingly, the report cites an expert study that says, “the typical aggressor is someone close to the girl, often a father, grandfather, or step-father.”
What explains the prevalence of child rape in Brazil? The machismo culture is cited as a major cause of Brazil’s high female child rape numbers. As an article in the Brazilian online magazine Universa points out, jokes or casual comments about the superiority of men or violence toward women show disrespect. This disrespect inevitably creates violence toward females of all ages. A 2020 study states that between January and October 2019, in the state of Sao Paulo alone there was an average of one child rape per hour. The same study says that many Brazilian states registered increases in child rapes in 2019 as well.
The machismo rape culture partly developed during the Brazil’s colonial past. As the Brazilian journalist Cynara Menezes argues, “rape is in the DNA of Brazil.” Female African slaves and indigenous women were routinely raped. These women had no legal recourse given they were not recognized as people. Although slavery ended in the 1880s in Brazil, the racist and machista legacy is still engrained in the culture. A 2020 study found that black and brown women suffer over 70 percent of the rapes in modern Brazil. Racism and violence against females in Brazilian society are often intertwined and minors bear the brunt. Child rape exists within a broader rape culture that disproportionately impacts minors. Seven in 10 rapes in Brazil are against children and adolescents.
Men closest to children -- like fathers, step-fathers, and uncles -- are commonly the abusers. Some men create excuses to justify their actions. The New York Times states that in Brazil's Amazon region, "myths are used to mask or explain away [child sexual abuse crimes]. A popular folk tale, for instance, attributes youthful pregnancies of unknown or unspeakable paternity to the mystical pink river dolphin of the Amazon, which is said to transform itself into a handsome man who attends parties and seduces young girls to have sexual encounters close to the river."
Given that many abusers live in the same household as the victims, Brazil’s poverty is also a contributing factor in the high rates of child sexual abuse. Many families live in packed dwellings with extended family. Frequent exposure to more male family members likely creates a greater risk for abuse. With the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and more adults and children home, child abuse has only worsened. Moreover, school employees are trained to recognize abuse but, as of mid-2020, schools are mostly shut.
In addition to the above historical cultural issues and poverty, in many parts of Brazil the state is weak, non-existent, or distrusted which allows child abusers to roam free. The Amazon is vast and road connections between villages are often poor. Even if victims came forward and the state had ample resources, investigating cases in such an environment is difficult. In cities on Brazil’s coast, many people living in favelas (slums) and other marginalized neighborhoods on the periphery often do not trust the police. Moreover, in many favelas gangs have supplanted the government as keepers of the peace and providers of some essential services. Whether this translates into higher rates of justice for child rape victims is unclear. What is clear is the perpetrators in favelas remain beyond the government's reach. This further exposes the government's ineptness in tackling the problem.
To be fair, there are people within the Brazilian government who work very hard to put sexual predators behind bars. However, in a very violent society resources are often directed toward solving other violent crimes and combating the narcotics trade.
Despite being strapped for resources, the government could change policy as a way to better combat child sex abusers. For example, they could increase training in police stations for those who investigate and how crimes are investigated. According to an excellent long-form piece on the impunity of rapists in Brazil, the online publication Metropolis quotes experts who argue that the police are not trained to receive rape victims (the article focuses on the impunity of rapists generally, but given that 70% of rape victims are estimated to be underage -- as noted above -- there is significant overlap between the impunity of rapists generally and child rapists). One attorney states that the police often ask victims questions in a judgmental way “full of prejudice.”
Additionally, the state’s court system is disposed to dismiss rape accusations. A different legal expert in the same Metropolis article says machista judges “do not value the word of the victim.” As a New York Times piece on child abuse in the Brazilian Amazon discusses, abused children in particular are infrequently believed in court or retract their statements.
A 2018 rape case in the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil illustrates state incompetency and the prejudice women face in bring forward rape accusations. In the case, a defense attorney questioned a rape victim in a lewd and aggressive manner and the accused was absolved of the crime. The judge and prosecutor who were present did nothing to intervene on the victim’s behalf. The trial’s tape was recently uncovered and provoked outrage on social media over both the defense attorney’s conduct and the state’s unwillingness to protect the victim in court. Female rape victims of all ages can see this case as a reason not to take the risk of seeking justice.
The government can also change their education policies to improve sex-ed in schools to protect children from sexual abuse. According to an article published by the Federal University of Rio Grande de Sol in southern Brazil in August 2020, “Brazilian schools generally lack a sex-ed curriculum and when they do it usually just teaches about sexual organs.” However, schools should teach children about “how to protect themselves against abuse, what their rights are, and that they are the owners of their own bodies.” The article adds that discussing abuse leads children to denounce their abusers at school.
A 23 year-old friend from the state of Pernambuco in northeast Brazil said she never had any sex education in school. My friend’s experience is all the more striking given that she went to school in Recife, a major metropolis and her school was one of the city's most prestigious. As the widely read online platform Profissão Reporter states, in both rural and urban areas sex education is often tabu in Brazil.
Due to Brazil’s size and fragmented education system -- where a large percentage of students go to a diverse number of private schools and 70 or so percent attend public schools -- there will be variety in how sex education is taught. Many experts and researchers agree, however, that Brazil's schools generally fail to give sufficient and widespread sex education.
In addition, current trends in sex education are ominous. In a nod to his far-right Christian base, Jair Bolsonaro has argued for abstinence education instead of true sex education. He has called for the abolition of sex education in Brazil.
Bolsonaro and his government not only has a ghastly record on sex education, they have also turned their back on gender discrimination and mocked the severity of rape. In July 2020, Brazil joined Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt in abstaining from a United Nations vote to condemn discrimination against women and children. Bolsonaro himself belittled the seriousness of rape in public comments and said that a female federal representative “did not deserve to be raped” by him.
Female youth sex abuse is a worldwide issue difficult to combat even in the best of times and places. Unfortunately, Brazil in 2020 is a uniquely dangerous place to be a girl. A history of racial sexual violence, deep poverty, ingrained machismo and inadequate to non-existent sex education create this cocktail. Machismo infects the state as the justice system doubts and humiliates victims and makes the cocktail more toxic. The head of state -- a machista who belittles rape and females -- erases hope that this horrific cocktail can be brought under control. An already tough situation can only get worse until serious societal and governmental reforms occur.
