Brazil registered 62 criminal actions through August 2021 and June 2025, according to the new report of the Alziras Institute launched on Wednesday (27). The study took stock of the four years of the legislation that criminalizes the practice, complete at the beginning of the month.
Experts consider that the total occurrences is higher due to the low judicialization rate of cases. Only 11% of the total of 245 representations mapped by the Working Group on Gender Political Violence of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) became legal proceedings.
“It is a very small universe in the face of the amount of cases that are known. Often, the complaint that is received does not become criminal action because it is filed or there is delay in the inquiry phase,” says Michelle Ferreti, director of the Alziras Institute.
She also states that there are high levels of underground. “Especially when it comes to intra -partisan violence, because it is easier to denounce a political opponent than someone in the party.”
In addition to MPF data, the analysis had an active search in the Electoral Justice systems and requests for information via the 27 state public ministries, totaling a universe of 62 criminal actions analyzed.
The report points out that 85% of attackers are men and 60% occupants of public positions, mainly councilors (40%). Common citizens and citizens are also prominent in the ranking, representing 40% of the authorship of violence.
Of the total perpetrators, 44 were affiliated with political parties and there was diversity between the acronyms. O concentrate the largest number of attackers (11%), followed by and (7% each). Nevertheless, other acronyms, such as PT and PSB, also reported cases (3%, both). “Left parties do not come out unharmed, precisely because there is a naturalization of violence against women in society,” says Ferreti.
In more than half (55%) of the shares, the victims are councilors. Secondly, state candidates and deputies appear, with 16% each.
Most are affiliated with (Workers Party) with 16 women (23%). The (Socialism and Freedom Party) and the (Social Democratic Party) appear in second place with 7 victims each (10%). Victims of parties linked to the right and center-right field also appear in the analysis.
“Having women of more conservative parties as a target of violence reinforces the understanding that there is a material symbolic dispute for the occupation of gender -biased political space, in addition to traditional ideological disputes,” says the director of the Alziras Institute.
Of the judicialized cases, 54% occurred in the physical environment – with highlighting the city councils – 40% occurred in the digital space and another 6% in both.
“The data show that online violence is as real as violence in the physical world and can lead women to give up the candidacy because of the attacks received,” says Clarice Tavares, research coordinator of Internetlab who addresses topics such as online misogyny and digital rights.
In 2022, the former federal deputy.
Tavares states that aggressions in the online world can be broader compared to violence in the physical world, although both seek to push women away from political dispute.
“A comment that a user makes can be reproduced by several others and quickly turning a mass attack. There are cases of artificially produced images that often use, and also have a very significant range.”
“After all, she thinks with the brain or the pyriquite?”, “Piranha,” slut, liar, will take in your ass, your bitch, “” thief, bitch and stupid “,” I want to know the day of your wake “,” naughty transvestite, stop fresh and “black garbage” were some of the aggressions recorded in the case file.
Although 55% of victims are white women, survey researchers point out that the severity of aggressions intensifies in acts against black, indigenous and LGBTQIAP+women.
“We seem to us that there is a matter of difficulty in accessing these women, either to pay a lawyer, to accompany the complaints or to have political and social capital to press the justice system,” says Ferreti.
Of the 62 processes analyzed, 12 were finished definitively. In none of them, there was a conviction of the defendant.
For the PhD in Criminal Law and Professor at UFBA (Federal University of Bahia Daniela Portugal, the naturalization of violence against women is one of the challenges for the judicial system to recognize the crime.
“This barrier is overcome, we still find all the difficulties in the functioning of the penal system, whose application dynamics are selective, that is, more fast and relentless for some cases, and more conniving for others,” he says.
The study draws attention to the fact that 16% of actions benefited from the conditional suspension of the process. The measure guarantees the temporary suspension of the action, usually two to four years, provided that the accused complies certain conditions imposed by the court.
At the end of the period, if the agreed terms are full, the case is extinguished without judgment of merit, ie the defendant is not convicted.
Portugal considers it to be early to assess whether there is impunity in the application of the law.
“Depending on the conditions set forth, coupled with the proper supervision of its compliance, the conditional suspension of the process may have the preventive pedagogical function of inhibiting new behaviors of political violence.”
