O femicide it is the homicide practiced against a woman as a result of the fact that she is a woman (misogyny and contempt for the female condition or gender discrimination, factors that may also involve sexual violence) or as a result of domestic violence. Law 13.104/15, better known as Femicide Law, altered the Brazilian Penal Code, including femicide as a qualifier for the crime of homicide.
Types of femicide
The Femicide Law does not indiscriminately frame any murder of women as an act of femicide. Lack of knowledge of the law's content led several sectors, especially the most conservative, to question the need for its implementation. We must keep in mind that the law only applies in the cases described below:
Domestic or family violence: when the crime results from domestic violence or is committed with it, that is, when the murderer is a family member of the victim or has already maintained some kind of affective bond with her. This type of femicide is the most common in Brazil, unlike other countries in Latin America, where the violence against women is commonly practiced by strangers, usually with the presence of violence sexual.
Contempt or discrimination against the status of women: when the crime results from gender discrimination, manifested by women's misogyny and objectification.
Violence against women often takes place in the victim's own home and is practiced by a family member.
When the murder of a woman is due, for example, to Robbery (robbery followed by death) or a simple fight between strangers or is committed by another woman, there is no configuration of femicide. Femicide will only qualify as a homicide in the cases described in the topics above.
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Purpose and importance of the Femicide Law
Due to the extremely high rates of crimes committed against women that make Brazil take fifth place in the world ranking of violence against women, there is an urgent need for laws to deal rigidly with this type of crime. Data from the Violence Map reveal that, in 2017 alone, there were more than 60 thousand rapes in Brazil. In addition, our culture still conforms to the discrimination of women through the practice, expressed or veiled, of misogyny It's from patriarchy. This causes the objectification of the woman, which results, in more serious cases, in femicide.
The immense amount of crimes committed against women and the high rates of femicide present sufficient justification for the implementation of Law 13.104/15. In addition, public policies that promote gender equality through education, valuing women and enforcing current laws are needed.
Patriarchy and misogyny are factors behind the high rates of violence against women in Brazil.
reproductive femicide
The types of femicide are basically those presented by law (as a result of domestic violence and misogyny with or without sexual violence). However, researcher Jackeline Aparecida Ferreira Romio, PhD in Demography from Unicamp, qualifies in her research another type of femicide, the reproductive femicide, which stems from clandestine abortions done in illegal clinics or through at-home methods.
This controversial classification of Jackeline Romio it is important because it draws attention to the fact that femicide also stems, structurally, from a legal system that imprints misogyny in the form of social control over women. THE abortion ban it is a way to control the body and, at the same time, to maintain a certain type of power over women, in addition to not being an effective measure against the practice.
What we see, in general, is that the legal ban has not stopped the number of abortions committed, but has caused women to go to illegal clinics, in general. places without minimum sanitary conditions to carry out any health procedure, or abortion women, who use equally dangerous home methods.
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Femicide Law
Law 13.104/15, better known as the Law on femicide, introduces a qualifier in the category of crimes against life and changes the category of the so-called heinous crimes, adding in this category the femicide. Check out the law:
femicide (Included by Law No. 13.104, of 2015)
VI - against women for reasons of the female condition:
VII – against the authority or agent described in arts. 142 and 144 of the Federal Constitution, members of the prison system and the National Public Security Force, in the exercise of function or as a result of it, or against your spouse, partner or consanguine relative up to the third degree, due to this condition:
Feather - imprisonment, from twelve to thirty years.
§ 2-A It is considered that there are reasons of the female gender when the crime involves:
I - domestic and family violence;
II - contempt or discrimination to the condition of women.
penalty increase
§ 7 The penalty of femicide is increased from 1/3 (one third) to half if the crime is committed:
I - during pregnancy or within 3 (three) months after delivery;
II - against a person under 14 (fourteen) years old, over 60 (sixty) years old or with a disability;
III - in the presence of a descendant or ascendant of the victim." (NR)
Art. 2nd Art. 1 of Law No. 8072, of July 25, 1990, becomes effective with the following change:
“Art. 1º
I - homicide (art. 121), when committed in a typical extermination group activity, even if committed by a single agent, and aggravated homicide (art. 121, § 2, I, II, III, IV, V and VI);
Art. 3rd This Law enters into force on the date of its publication.
Brasilia, March 9, 2015; 194th of Independence and 127th of the Republic.
There was also a change in the heinous crimes section (Law No. 8.072/90) through Law 13.104/15, which placed femicide in the same category as these crimes, which resulted in the need to form a Jury court, or the well-known popular jury, to try the femicide defendants.
Penalty for femicide crimes
As it is a qualified form of homicide, the penalty for femicide is higher than the penalty provided for simple homicide. While a man convicted of simple homicide can face from 6 to 20 years in prison, a convicted femicide can face imprisonment. 12 to 30. This equates the provision of penalties for those convicted of aggravated homicide and femicide.
The penalty for femicide crimes can be up to 30 years in prison.
Femicide in Brazil
According to the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA), between 2007 and 2011, there was, on average, one femicide every hour and a half in Brazil, which resulted in a total of 28,800 registered femicide in the period. O 2015 Violence Map points out the occurrence of 13 femicides a day in Brazil against the 16 pointed out in the IPEA sample from 2007 to 2011.
Most of these crimes are committed by men who live or have lived with the victim, whether they are boyfriends, sexual partners or husbands. In addition to the high rates of femicide, there are still many cases of rape and bodily harm caused by domestic violence.
Faced with so much data from crimes committed against women and the fact that Brazil occupies the fifth place in the ranking of violence against women (being ahead of countries Arabs in which Islamic Law is incorporated into the official legal system), it is necessary to think about the origin of so much. violence.
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As some feminist theories claim, the origin of this violence is in the patriarchal and misogynist culture that still permeates our society. This type of culture can only be reversed with policies that promote education, gender equality and law enforcement, in addition to laws such as the Maria da Penha Law and the Femicide Law, which criminalize and propose specific and more severe punishments for those who commit crimes of violence against women.
by Francisco Porfirio
Sociology Professor
