On 14 August 2019 the sixth ‘Marcha das Margaridas’ took place in Brazil, bringing more than 100,000 women out onto the streets demanding an end to gender-based violence and oppression. Movements organised and led by women have been in the forefront of challenging ultra-right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro and his reactionary government since his election on 28 October 2018. Huge numbers of women had taken to the streets across Brazil and in dozens of cities across the world in September 2018 before the election with the slogan: ELE NÃO – NOT HIM! Bolsonaro openly praises the 1964-1985 military dictatorship responsible for the torture, rape and murders of hundreds of its left-wing opponents. His election victory has brought tragic consequences, not only for the Amazon rainforest and peoples, but for all workers in Brazil – especially women.
The ‘Marcha das Margaridas’ assembles every four years and is the biggest women’s march in Latin America. Margarida Maria Alves was a rural trade unionist and environmentalist who was murdered in 1983. The theme this year was ‘Margaridas in the struggle for a Brazil with popular sovereignty, democracy, justice, equality and freedom from violence’ with demands for social justice, preservation of the environment, and the end of gender-based violence, racism, homophobia and religious intolerance. The march was the largest and most effective recent action of women from the countryside, the forest and the waterways, against exploitation, domination and all forms of violence. This year’s mobilisation in Brazil brought together more than 100,000 women, caravans from all regions of the country, representatives from around 25 countries from different continents, artists, federal deputies, senators and other political partners. This year the march had the support and special participation of the First March of Indigenous Women of Brazil under the slogan ‘Territory: our body, our spirit’ with demands such as the preservation of indigenous lands, for a quality healthcare system and guaranteed rights for Indians. United, they marched to the Esplanada dos Ministerios to confront Bolsonaro and his entire programme of division and repression.
Bolsonaro’s political rhetoric, plans and actions directly attack women. This is true both of his economic agenda – such as the reduction of social security and labour rights – and his social agenda – such as the possibility of greater criminalisation of abortion, or prohibition of debates about gender or violence in schools. Abortion is already illegal in Brazil other than in the case of rape, or when the mother’s life is in danger, or in cases of foetuses with anencephaly. Over 200,000 women suffer complications from abortions each year and seek help in Brazilian hospitals.
Bolsonaro has nominated only two women to his cabinet. One of them is Damares Alves, his Minister of Human Rights, Family and Women. She is an evangelical pastor and campaigner against feminism and abortion. Eager to preserve the ‘traditional family’ model, Alves is a proponent of the ‘Rape Grant’, a financial incentive from the government to encourage a mother to carry to term any pregnancy conceived as a result of sexual assault. In 2018, R$13.6m was approved by Bolsanaro’s transition team for the building of 25 ‘Brazilian Women’s Houses’ established by decree in 2013, which would provide specialised services for the diverse types of violence against women. Damares has spent nothing of this budget, and no transfers were made from the budget for the maintenance of the five Brazilian Women’s Houses already in existence, nor for the remaining 20 which are planned.
Femicide – the murder of women – is rising in a country that already had one of the highest figures in the world in 2018. According to the Brazilian Forum of Public Security, 16 million women suffered some kind of violence in 2018 – equivalent to the entire population of Ecuador. The forum further reported that 536 women were physically assaulted every hour in Brazil and that there are between 800 and 1,300 rapes per day, alongside 10 to 15 murders. In the first quarter of 2019 Brazil had a 76% increase in femicide compared to the first quarter of 2018. At least one million cases of violence against women await trial by the Brazilian judiciary.
The dramatic growth of femicide in the first quarter of 2019 is no coincidence. Bolsonaro poses for pictures using his hands to represent a gun, encourages the ‘slaughter’ of suspects, the militarisation of everyday life and treats femicide as ‘nonsense’. Yet he suggested, in a video circulating on the internet, that arming women was the best way to end femicide, and signed a decree that allowed the individual possession of up to four firearms for all states in Brazil without proving ‘effective necessity’. The World Health Organisation, pointing to the statistics and the federal government’s decisions, expressed concern about the future of Brazilian women, who live in a country with the fifth highest female murder rate in the world. The Secretariat of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) notes that in 76% of the cases of femicide the aggressors are the current or ex-partner of the victims, and more than 50% of the cases are in victim’s houses. Domestic violence was not a crime in Brazil until 2006, when the federal criminal domestic violence code was passed by left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently imprisoned on trumped-up corruption charges.
Data from the ‘Map of Violence 2015: homicide of women in Brazil’ finds that firearms were used in 2,323 cases of the 4,762 murders of Brazilian women in 2013, equivalent to 48.8%. This percentage remained stable between 2012 and 2016. According to the Maria da Penha Institute’s ‘Clocks of Violence’, a woman is a victim of a threat with a knife or firearm in Brazil every 16.6 seconds. Every two minutes, a woman is shot. Specialists working in the area point out that those defending arms sales and looser legislation are wilfully ignorant of the key factors concerning violence against women, such as the profiles of victims and aggressors, and the weaknesses of the support network, including failures to report to the police and in the enforcement of protection and insufficient provision of safe housing. The encouragement of greater gun ownership in the new legislation puts more weapons at the disposal of potential aggressors, increasing women’s domestic vulnerability.
These arms ‘enthusiasts’ ignore women’s position in Brazil. Many women have little (or no) financial autonomy, which often prevents them from escaping from relationships in which they are suffering domestic violence. A woman who cannot move away from the house because she cannot support her children or herself would certainly not be able to buy a gun; nor would she put this on her list of priorities. About 70% of Brazilian women are unemployed, of these about 46% are able and looking for waged work. Most non-waged working women are 50 years old or more and have had no education or have only completed elementary school. For those in work, according to the Public Safety Forum in Brazil, black women’s earnings are 44% lower than those of white women, and they were the majority of victims of violence in 2018. Brazilian men earn in about nine months the same as their female counterparts do in a whole year.
Bolsonaro’s weapons’ decrees of 15 January 2019 and 7 May 2019 dramatically affect indigenous women by making purchases easier in rural areas, so facilitating the invasion and occupation of demarcated lands through the genocide of the indigenous population. Bolsonaro has encouraged this by dismantling the organisations that are responsible for the supervision of these areas.
While largely white men in suits exercise their rotten powers from behind their exclusive walls, declaring what is good for women without even consulting them, denying them a voice in public policy and praising domestic servitude, Brazilian women are organising themselves by occupying public spaces, fighting their way into political spaces, and shaping public opinion. Together, hand in hand, without surrendering to the divisions, prejudices and misogyny promoted by capitalism in order to divide all workers, women and men, we can win.
