2006

Brazil Enacts Law on Violence against Women
August 9, 2006 -(UNIFEM) Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a new law on Domestic and Family Violence against Women on 7 August 2006 in Brasilia. The law is the result of an extensive process of consultation and discussion, in which key women's organizations played a crucial role. The process was promoted by the State Secretariat of Policies for Women and supported by UNIFEM.

Trafficking probe leads to raids
April 20, 2006 -(BBC news) Police have made several arrests in Dundee as part of an operation to combat human sex trafficking.

2005

YES, a More Peaceful Brazil is Possible
September 24, 2005 - (O Globo) When the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) was launched in 1992, even the most optimistic among us did not think it likely that we would remove landmines from the world's arsenals. Because their use was so longstanding and so widespread, the vision of a ban seemed far from reality.

MILLENNIUM GOALS: A Step Backwards for Women, Say Activists
September 5, 2005 - (IPS) Women's rights activists in Brazil say the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are narrower than the objectives adopted at international conferences in the 1990s.

Anteprojeto propõe descriminalizar o aborto
27 de julho 2005 - (Folha de S. Paulo) Descriminalizar o aborto até a 12ª semana de gestação, ampliar o prazo da interrupção da gravidez para 20 semanas em casos de estupro e não determinar limite de tempo para o aborto em casos de grave risco à saúde da mulher e de má-formação do feto.

Pai de brasileira morta não crê em paz "nesta geração"
15 de julho de 2005 - (Estadao.com.br) O pai da brasileira Dana Galkovitz - que foi morta na quinta-feira em uma comunidade agrícola no sul de Israel depois de um ataque com mísseis lançados a partir da Faixa de Gaza -, disse que a violência na região preocupava muito a estudante. "Dana queria muito a paz e fez tudo o que pôde para contribuir para um melhor entendimento entre os povos", disse Natan Galkovitz à BBC Brasil. "Durante o serviço militar, ela fez todos os esforços para tentar humanizar o tratamento dos soldados à população palestina. Ela estava muito preocupada com a violência."

Brazil Tries to Stem Tide of Sex Slavery
June 19, 2005 - (WeNews) It's 9 p.m. and a young woman in a short black skirt buttons up her fake fur-collared jacket, on her way out the door of the Partenon Flats Hotel. In her black stiletto heels, she carefully navigates the sidewalks of the trendy Sao Paulo suburb of Pinheiros.

2004

Brazil re-evaluates special treatment of chastity under law: Designation of 'honest woman' may be stricken
December 26, 2004 - (Los Angeles Times) If Myllena Calazans has her way, there will be no more honest women in Brazil. Officially speaking, at any rate. Legislation working its way through the Brazilian Congress aims to remove references to "honest women" from this country's penal code, a change that women's rights activists such as Calazans wholeheartedly support.

Brazil steps up alert on sexual trafficking
October 19, 2004 -(Miami Herald) Brazil turned to unvarnished messages to warn its women about being lured abroad for sexual exploitation.

Activists Call for Reforms to Boost Women's Representation
October 8, 2004 - (IPS) Brazil will continue to be a ”hobbled democracy” unless electoral reforms are adopted to increase women's representation in political office, said Almira Rodrigues, co-director of the Feminist Studies and Advisory Centre (CFEMEA).

Women marginalized from politics
October 7, 2004 - (Latinamerica Press) Women’s participation in politics faces a series of obstacles but some advances have been made.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE DRIVES CHILDREN TO STREET, EXPERT SAYS
March 2, 2004 – (UN Wire) Domestic violence and not socioeconomic problems leads children to live in the streets, according to a new study written by UNICEF consultant and professor at Brazil's Universidade Catolica de Goias, Benedito Rodrigues dos Santos, who presented his findings at University of California, Berkeley.

BRAZIL NEEDS TO STOP CHILD PROSTITUTION, U.N. ENVOY SAYS
February 19, 2004 – (UN Wire) Releasing a 26-page study yesterday, Juan Miguel Petit, the U.N. envoy on child prostitution and child pornography and the sale of children, called for stricter rules to protect as many as 500,000 children from being exploited in Brazil.

RIO TO COMBAT SEX TOURISM AS CARNIVAL APPROACHES
February 12, 2004 – (Unwire) Authorities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are launching a campaign against sexual exploitation and the use of minors in the sex trade as Carnival, an event that attracts millions of tourists to the country, approaches, Reuters reported yesterday.


2003

U.N. ENVOY RECEIVES REPORT ON CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN BRAZIL
November 5, 2003 – (UN Wire) A U.N. envoy analyzing the sexual exploitation of children in Brazil has received a report from a parliamentary commission affirming that the police, politicians and the judiciary are contributing to the problem.

BRAZIL WANTS TIGHTER GUN LAWS: DISARMAMENT STATUTE PASSED IN CONGRESS YESTERDAY
October 24, 2003 – (IANSA) Sweeping gun law reforms were approved in Congress yesterday in Brazil, a country where a person is killed by a gun every thirteen minutes. The legislation, known as the Disarmament Statute, passed by an overwhelming margin of 275 to 18, after hours of emotional debate and a tough battle through a congressional commission.

STERILIZATION OF BRAZILIAN WOMEN AND EXPLOITATION AND SEXUAL ABUSE OF CHILDREN
October 17, 2003 - (Brazilian Service of Justice and Peace - SEJUP) 45% of Brazilian women are sterilized during their childbearing years. Four of every ten Brazilian women are surgically sterilized during their childbearing years. These are the statistics used by specialists who declare that this culture was disseminated in the 1960´s when women’s bodies became a political battleground. This Brazilian phenomenon, unique in the world, is due to a culture of tube-cutting (tubal ligation) as the preferred method of avoiding conception, including among young women, said physician Dr. Antonio Carlos Rodrigues da Cunha, who studies the subject at the University of Brasília.

SOAP STARS JOIN 50,000 IN RAINY RIO TO DEMAND GUNS CRACKDOWN
September 15, 2003 – (Guardian) Leading soap opera stars joined tens of thousands of Rio residents yesterday to demand more stringent gun controls in Brazil, one of the world's most violent countries.

BRAZIL OFFERS ASYLUM TO NIGERIAN WOMAN
September 11, 2003 – (AP) Brazil said Thursday it was willing to grant asylum to a woman in Nigeria who was sentenced to death by stoning for having sex outside of marriage.

IPAS BRAZIL LAUNCHES COLLABORATION TO FIGHT DOMESTIC AND SXUAL VIOLENCE
August 28, 2003 - (Ipas) With the slogan “Don’t Be Afraid, Report the Crime,” Ipas Brazil and the Center for Popular Education and Assistance (CEAP) recently launched Project AMPARO, a collaborative initiative to form a network of comprehensive services for women and adolescent victims of domestic and sexual violence in Northern Brazil.

ABORTION IN BRAZIL A DEBATE DIVIDED ALONG MORAL, CLASS LINES
July 28, 2003 - (Knight Ridder Newspapers) Viviane Borges Coutinho checked into a Brazilian state hospital in unbearable pain from a self-induced abortion. She had taken the ulcer medication Cytotec without a prescription, believing it would terminate her unwanted pregnancy.

UPDATE ON THE COMMITTEE ON THE CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF DISCRIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN (CEDAW)
July 22, 2003 – (IWTC WOMEN'S GLOBALNET #231) CEDAW held its 29th Session at the UN Headquarters, New York from 30 June-18 July 2003. The Committee considered reports from the following 8 countries: Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, and Slovenia.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING: THE SCANDAL OF THE 21ST CENTURY
July 18, 2003 - (SEJUP) According to the United Nations, human trafficking on a global scale has reached an annual rate of four million. In the midst of this announcement is a scandalous reality: Brazil is one of the largest supplying countries in the world for international human trafficking.

GOVERNMENT'S COMMITMENT TO ALL OF BRAZIL'S WOMEN AFFIRMED BEFORE ANTI-DISCRIMINATION COMMITTEE
July 7, 2003 - (UNHCHR) "Our commitment to all Brazilian women in their diversity is affirmed in the strengthening of democracy, in the struggle against bias and racial prejudice, in the firm action to counter discrimination and exclusion", Brazil's Special Secretary of Women's Policies, Emilia Therezinha Fernandes, told the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women this morning. Quoting from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, she added: "If poverty has a woman's face, so will our fight against that poverty."

U.N. PANEL NOTES REPORTING DELAY BUT PRAISES BRAZIL ON WOMEN
July 2, 2003 – (UN Wire) The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women yesterday said Brazil was extremely tardy in presenting its first report on its implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women but lauded the country for taking steps to improve the situation of its women.

WOMEN IN BRAZIL TAKE A STAND AGAINST GUNS
February 2003 – (Amnesty International-The Wire) In the last 10 years, 300,000 people have been killed in Brazil, largely as a result of urban violence and the proliferation of guns in the country. While 24 men are killed for every one woman, every death leaves a grieving mother, wife, sister, girlfriend or friend. Now the women of Brazil are uniting to try to put an end to the terrifying escalation of violence and gun crime.

UNESCO, SAO PAULO STATE TEAM UP ON YOUTH CULTURE, VIOLENCE
January 29, 2003 - (UN Wire) UNESCO and the secretary of culture of the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo signed an agreement yesterday to join forces in promoting social inclusion, fighting against violence and seeking to prevent the marginalization of young people.

2002

PHYSICIANS AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
September 27, 2002 -(LATINAMERICAPRESS) In an effort to reduce the death toll from domestic violence, 35,000 pediatricians have launched a national campaign to prevent accidents and violence against children and adolescents. According to the Ministry of Health, half the deaths of children and adolescents between ages 5 and 19 in 1999 were due to external causes, mainly violence.

TWO IN THREE WOMEN ABUSED
May 20, 2002 - (BBC) As many as two out of three women living in some parts of the world have suffered domestic violence. Preliminary results from a study carried out by the World Health Organisation found that almost half the women living in Peru had been physically assaulted by their partners.

2001

2000

RURAL INEQUALITIES
September 4, 2000 -(LATINAMERICAPRESS) About 15,000 women participated in the Aug. 10 “March of the Margaridas” — named in honor of Margarida Alves, a unionist from the northeastern state of Paraíba who was assassinated on that date 17 years ago on the order of powerful local ranchers — to protest economic policies, as well as poverty and violence in rural areas.

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