page_title: Domestic violence in Brazil
section_title: Law
hierarchical_section_title: Domestic violence in Brazil / Law
caption_attribution_description: English: Marcia Lia during public hearing of 10 years of the Law "Maria da Penha"
context_page_description: Domestic violence in Brazil involves any type of violence or abuse by intimate partners or family members against one another. The majority of domestic violence cases in Brazil are performed by the man against their female partners. In 2015, the government released a study that showed that every seven minutes a woman was a victim of domestic violence in Brazil, over 70% of the Brazilian female population will suffer some kind of violence throughout their lifetime and 1 in every 4 women reports being a victim of psychological or physical violence. In 2017, Brazil had an estimate of 606 cases of violence and 164 cases of rape per day, over 60 thousand cases throughout the year. It is also estimated that only 10% of the cases are registered to the police. Although Brazil acknowledged that domestic violence was a problem in the 1940s, the Government has only acted upon it from 1980s onwards, with the creation of the Women Police Stations and later in 2006, with the publication of the Domestic Violence law.
context_section_description: The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 previews equal rights to men and women, however, the first legal formalization against domestic violence was published only 18 years after constitution. The Brazilian famous law, Lei Maria da Penha was the result of an international process led by Maria da Penha herself. A victim of domestic violence, Maria da Penha Fernandes, was shot at by her husband with a rifle, who also tried to electrocute her in the bathroom. As a consequence, she became paralytic and started a long battle in court to convict her husband. In the 1990s, Maria da Penha appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and, in 2001, she was able obtain justice and hold the Brazilian Government accountable for judicial tolerance of domestic violence. The commission also recommended that the Brazilian Government adopt more effective measures against women violence.
caption: In 2016, the Maria da Penha Law complete 10 years
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