The study Female homicides in Brazil and its major regions (1980-2019): An analysis of age, period, and cohort effects will be published in the magazine Violence Against Women.
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Identify when the murder of a woman is in fact a case of femicide Not an easy task. In Brazil, a country where legislation on the subject is still recent, the data available in the Mortality Information System (SIM) are not sufficient to discriminate whether they are related to gender violence, whether due to the limitations of the information systems themselves, which do not allow the victim's relationship with the aggressor to be assessed, or due to the fact that police forces are not necessarily prepared to identify this type of incident, consider the authors of the study.
Given this fragility, the article proposes the use of indirect indicators to assess gender-based violence, such as whether the crime occurred inside the victim's home and through the use of a firearm. In all indirect indicators, there is an increase in violent deaths of women, with higher rates among young women and a higher proportion in the black population..
There is a high frequency of records of deaths due to violent causes classified as “undetermined intent” and reporting problems, which leads us to believe that the numbers are underestimated. In the North Region, for example, this type of occurrence was 49,88% higher than that indicated by the government. This represents 6,46 violent deaths of women for every 100 inhabitants and not 4,31/100.000 as shown by SIM. The Northeast comes next, with an increase of 41,03% (from 5,58 to 7,87 deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants). The lowest rate was observed in the South Region, although a difference of upwards of 9,13% was also recorded.
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Different Brazils
The Southeast records an average of 3,45 murders for every 100 women, while the Central-West appears with 8,55 for every 100. “It is worth highlighting that this last region, plus the Northeast and North, has a coefficient above the national average”, says the text. South and Southeast, therefore, appear below the national average. Similar results are observed when analyzing women's deaths from firearms: the national average is 2,57 per hundred thousand, varying from 2,01 in the South to 3,28 in the Central-West.
“For the World Health Organization (WHO), deaths above 3 already characterize the region as one of extreme violence for women. The Central-West and North regions showed rates similar to those in countries like Guatemala and El Salvador”, explains Karina Meira, researcher at UFRN and coordinator of the study.
Brazilian women aged between 20 and 39 face a greater risk of suffering repeated violence, aggression or being murdered than women of other age groups. The study also shows that the average mortality rate from firearm homicides has a progressive increase from the 15-19 age group to the 40-44 age group, decreasing after the 45-49 age group in all regions of the country. .
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“This study of ours brings a different perspective. Brazil is a very large country, with diversities of all kinds: cultural, racial, geographic… Look at the femicide Without looking at these characteristics, it ends up making us see Brazil as an average, which does not reflect the reality of the country as a whole”, says Fiocruz researcher Raphael Guimarães, who, like Karina, participates in the Violence Working Group of the Brazilian Association of Public Health (Abrasco) and is co-author of the study. Raphael explains that this segmented view helps to understand and provide support for the formulation of more targeted and effective public policies.
Underreporting and race
The violent death of women is often classified as “undetermined intention”, that is, without indicating whether it was an accident, suicide or caused by third parties. Therefore, it was necessary to apply correction techniques. The correction of death registration data from the Mortality Information System of the Unified Health System (SIM/Datasus) demonstrated that female homicide rates were underreported in Brazil over a period of 40 years (1980 – 2019). The research updates the numbers and shows that this type of crime was 28,62% higher than that presented by SIM.
“In Brazil, the main methods used in the murder of women were the use of firearms, blunt/piercing objects, strangulation and suffocation. It is important to highlight that the temporal trend in firearm homicides is related to factors associated with the sale, circulation and acquisition of these weapons”, highlights the research. A reduction in the murders of women in the early 2000s in the South and Southeast would therefore be related to the Disarmament Statute and the Maria da Penha Law, in addition to other factors.
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The location also influences. A woman with financial autonomy in places where the patriarchal culture is more conservative faces a greater risk of suffering domestic violence than women with financial autonomy in places where there is more discussion about violence and which is not as conservative. “Whoever breaks the role of submission in these communities becomes a target. This community will use all means to show that women must return to their submissive role. Hence the difficulty of breaking the cycle of violence. This is not a matter of the individual, but of the State”, says Karina.
Women in the Southeast, for example, have a larger support network. Data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) show that in 2019 only 137 of the 5.570 (2,4%) Brazilian municipalities had shelters for women in situations of domestic violence, mainly concentrated in the South and Southeast. “Less than 10% of Brazilian municipalities offered specialized services for sexual assault, and only 8,3% of cities had specialized police stations to assist women. From 2017 to 2019, there was a 75% reduction in the transfer of funds to combat violence against women. It is not enough to have legal provisions if there is no funding for protection”, highlights Karina.
The rates also vary according to race. Between 2009 and 2019, Brazil recorded a reduction in homicides among white women, and an increase among black women. In 2019, a black woman was 1,7 times more likely to be murdered overall. “Race, gender and social inequalities have intensified in the poorest regions of the country – North and Northeast. In 2019, a black woman living in Rio Grande do Norte faced a 5,1 times greater risk of being murdered than a non-black woman,” says the article.
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Raphael remembers that these numbers are only related to homicides. “Death is the most extreme event. The number of black women victims of aggression is even greater. Women who suffer violence day after day, which does not necessarily lead to death, but which has serious effects on their lives”, highlights the Fiocruz researcher. “Our article can act as an inducement to begin evaluating data from women who have not died, but have suffered profound damage to their lives as a result of violence of all kinds: physical, psychological, sexual, domestic violence. It could be a starting point to further explore this issue”, he adds.
The article highlights that “measures are urgently needed to protect women in situations of violence. Expanding funding for programs to prevent violence against women is also necessary, alongside measures to reverse the dismantling of the Disarmament Statute, as having a gun in the home is one of the biggest risk factors for violence. gender violence and feminicide”, concludes the research.
(To Fiocruz)
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