Ways of confronting femicide in the Federal District were discussed this Wednesday (18). According to data from the DF Public Security Secretariat (SSP-DF), in the first week of 2023 alone, four cases of femicides were recorded. The number is the same as recorded throughout the month of January in 2022. Throughout the past year, 17 women were murdered in the DF, victims of femicide.
“We are in a listening mood. Our idea is to hear the perspective of these women who are occupying spaces of power on this issue regarding the fight against violence against women”, said the National Councilor for Culture and militant of the Feminist Levant Against Feminicide – DF Around, Rita Andrade.
At the opening of the meeting promoted by the Levante Feminista collective, a troupe was presented with cases of murdered women victims of femicide in the Federal District. In the first half of 2022, Brazil broke a record for feminicides, recording around 700 cases in the period. In 2021, more than 66 thousand women were victims of rape; more than 230,000 Brazilians suffered physical aggression due to domestic violence. The data is in the most recent Brazilian Public Security Yearbook.
For the popular lawyer, Ingrid Martins, it is necessary to have a “repeal” in relation to public gender policies edited by the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro.
“There was a state policy in the last four years that was precisely to maintain this family nucleus at all costs, depriving women, children, adolescents, of the ownership of rights. It is not exclusively in the domestic environment that we suffer violence, but in this space it is primarily where women and girls suffer sexual, gender and femicide violence,” said Ingrid.
The LGBTQIAP+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual/Transgender/Transvestite, Queer, Intersexual, Asexual, Pansexual) activist, Ludmilla Santiago, spoke about symbolism and the concept of female value. For her, this debate shows that more and more women are being violated, marginalized and sacrificed.
“Our bodies, our experiences, our trajectories, were never respected within various issues and not only within that sexist, patriarchal, racist, misogynistic system. Because even within our feminism, if we don’t pay, we succumb for some discourse that only want to raise hatred, separation, exclusion of a certain group model, of people, of this construction that is to be a woman”, she said.
The director of the Casa da Mulher Brasileira do DF, Rosilene Machado, spoke about the institution, which operates with a network of protection and care for women in situations of violence in the Federal District. For her, information, clarification, is capable of saving lives.
“I deal with women who, due to a variety of situations, ask to leave. Many times, I beg: don’t go, preserve your life. There are also other situations in which women, when leaving, are grateful for the opportunity to be welcomed gave them the opportunity to remain alive and moving towards a new dynamic”, he said.
