This was my second time in . Hot land, but with a delicious sea breeze. It was also a trip marked by a special meeting. It’s not every day that we come across an icon. It is difficult to describe the emotion of meeting and talking, even briefly, with the activist.
I had the pleasure of participating in the celebration organized by CAEN-UFC in honor of ten years of the Survey of Socioeconomic Conditions and Domestic and Family Violence against Women (PCSVDFMuher). The first wave was carried out in 2016 and coordinated by professor José Raimundo Carvalho, in partnership with the Maria da Penha Institute. Setting up and organizing a survey on , currently representative in 13 Brazilian capitals, with around 40 thousand interviews, is not a simple task. As the saying goes, rapadura is sweet, but not soft.
On the first day of the event, professors José Raimundo Carvalho, research coordinator, professor Mércia Santos (UFPB), coordinator of the EvA Network, and I presented results of academic research on . The following day, the book was released.
In her speech, Maria da Penha highlighted that one of the issues that hurts her the most is that of , which, according to her, remained invisible in this debate for a long time. She herself, if she had not survived the two attempts, would have left her three daughters orphans.
Furthermore, he highlighted concerns about points still open in the fight against domestic violence. One of them is the absence of this topic in schools and the need to invest in prevention among new generations to break the cycle of violence. Another important point is the lack of police stations specialized in assisting women (DEAMs) in the interior of the country.
If, on the one hand, Maria da Penha draws attention to institutional gaps, on the other, academic research shows how economic factors and public policies directly affect violence. The article “Does the Gender Wage Gap Influence Intimate Partner Violence in Brazil? Evidence from Administrative Health Data” investigates whether the reduction in , between 2011 and 2016, affects intimate partner violence (IPV).
The effects can occur in two directions: on the one hand, increased economic power allows women to leave abusive environments; on the other, men can react to the loss of power by increasing violence. The authors show that reducing wage inequality reduces cases of IPV reported by health professionals and that femicides fall in municipalities with a lower level of HDI (Human Development Index).
Furthermore, this reduction is associated with a drop in hospitalizations among women aged 15 to 29. In another article, “Women’s Police Stations and Intimate Partner Violence: Evidence from Brazil”, the authors show that the expansion of DEAMs reduced the number of femicides.
After the launch of the book and the end of the celebrations, a group of around 15 people met for dinner. The atmosphere was happy and couldn’t be any different. ; in 2015, the feminicide law was sanctioned; in 2016, the PCSVDFMuher survey was launched, among other achievements.
The co-founder and general superintendent of the Maria da Penha Institute, Conceição de Maria, described the struggle to obtain resources to make the research viable. He also spoke about the training of the interviewers, who visited the country’s capitals, often at risk and facing threats.
As she repeated at different times: rapadura is sweet, but it’s not soft, no. Until the time comes to try the rapadura, which no longer seems so difficult, and to recognize the exemplary work of this group. And, above all, remember, as Conceição said, “Dona Penha, you are not just a reference. You are the reason.”
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