The Chamber of Deputies approved this Wednesday (18) a bill that creates a new type of crime in the Penal Code: vicarious homicide.
In practice, this is when someone kills children or other relatives with the aim of targeting the woman — to make her suffer, punish her or control her — within a context of domestic or family violence.
The expected penalty is 20 to 40 years in prison. The text still needs to pass the Senate before becoming law.
The project, authored by deputies Laura Carneiro (PSD-RJ), Fernanda Melchionna (Psol-RS) and Maria do Rosário (PT-RS), was approved with changes made by the rapporteur, deputy Silvye Alves (União-GO).
According to the proposal, homicide will be considered vicarious when the victim is a son, father, mother, stepson, dependent or any person under the woman’s custody or direct responsibility.
The penalty can increase from a third to a half if the crime is committed in front of the woman, against a child, elderly person, person with a disability or in breach of a protective measure.
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The text also makes vicarious homicide a heinous crime, which toughens the sentence. Anyone convicted of a heinous crime cannot receive amnesty, grace, pardon or bail and it takes longer to leave the closed regime.
Furthermore, the project amends the Maria da Penha Law to include the so-called vicarious violence as a form of domestic violence: any aggression or threat against children, relatives or people in the woman’s support network, with the intention of harming her, may be classified in this category — even when there is no death, as in cases of bodily injury.
During the discussion, deputy Silvye Alves said that the proposal sheds light on a form of violence that is still little talked about, but “one of the cruelest”, according to her.
The rapporteur cited the recent case of Itumbiara (GO), in which the municipality’s Government Secretary killed his two children to cause suffering to his wife and then committed suicide.
Silvye also recounted a personal episode, saying that her father assaulted her mother when she was pregnant, and stated that many women report the instrumentalization of children in custody disputes and separations.
The project, however, did not reach consensus. Deputies such as Carlos Jordy (PL-RJ) and Julia Zanatta (PL-SC) criticized the text for focusing only on crimes committed by men against women, claiming that there are cases of women who also use their children to target their fathers.
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Deputies such as Jack Rocha (PT-ES), Sâmia Bomfim (Psol-SP), Lídice da Mata (PSB-BA) and Laura Carneiro argued that the objective is to confront a specific type of violence linked mainly to women, as occurs in the feminicide law.
For them, voting against the project means ignoring the fact that, in practice, women are the main victims of this type of crime in Brazil.
