Proposal, which now goes to the Senate, increases prison time for attackers and makes certain situations heinous crimes
The Chamber of Deputies approved, on Tuesday (10), a bill that establishes harsher penalties for the crimes of serious bodily injury, very serious or followed by death committed against women, when motivated by gender condition. The proposal will now be sent to the Senate for analysis.
The project was originally presented by congresswoman Nely Aquino (Pode-MG) and approved based on changes made by rapporteur, deputy Franciane Bayer (Republicanos-RS). According to the rapporteur, the change in the law is not a privilege, but a necessary protection for a group that suffers high levels of violence, often at home.
“Creating this specific type of criminal offense is giving a clear answer that violence against women will not be tolerated”, stated the deputy. Under Brazilian legislation, aggression is considered motivated by the female sex when it involves domestic violence e familiar, contempt or discrimination against women.
Federal deputy Franciane Bayer (Republicanos-RS)
Currently, the bodily injury against woman it is already considered an aggravating factorsorry for 2 to 5 years in prison. With the new project, this punishment remains for minor injuriesbut the Prison time increases for more violent cases:
Serious injury (e.g. danger to life, disability for more than 30 days or acceleration of labor): the prison sentence increases from the current range of 1 to 5 years to 3 to 8 years;
Very serious injury (e.g. permanent deformity, loss of limb or miscarriage): the sentence increases from 2 to 8 years to 4 to 10 years;
Injury followed by death: the punishment goes from 4 to 12 years to 5 to 14 years in prison.
Penalty increase
The approved text also creates situations in which the aggressor’s final sentence could be increased by one to two thirds. This will occur if the crime is committed:
- With the use of weapons (blank or fire), poison, fire, explosives or torture;
- In front (physical or virtual) of the victim’s children or parents;
- In non-compliance with an urgent protective measure;
- Against pregnant women, breastfeeding women, people with disabilities, people under 14 years old or over 60 years old;
- By militias or extermination groups.
Heinous crimes
The project establishes even stricter rules for attacks against women who work in the field of public security or justice (police officers, court officials, members of the Public Ministry, among others), as well as against wives and family (up to third degree) of these professionals. The punishment also applies to assaults committed in educational institutions.
In these specific situations, if the injury is very serious or results in death, the act will be classified as heinous crime — category that does not allow the payment of bail and requires initial serving of the sentence in a closed regime.
*With information from Agência Câmara
