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BRAZIL AND THE CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF

ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN

Paper of the Brazilian Women´s Movement regarding the Brazilian State’s compliance with CEDAW: Proposals and Recommendations

Executive Summary

The paper of the Brazilian Women´s Movement was put together with substantial participation from women’s networks, national groupings, organizations and individuals, having as co-conveners AGENDE - Ações em Gênero Cidadania e Desenvolvimento (Agende - Action on Gender, Citizenship and Development) and CLADEM-Brasil - Seção brasileira do Comitê Latino Americano e do Caribe para a Defesa dos Direitos da Mulher (Brazilian section of the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women’s Rights)1.

Its main purpose is to highlight the concerns and priorities related to the implementation of women’s human rights and the construction and consolidation of their citizenship, taking the experiences, perceptions and views of women’s movement activists as its starting point. As well as informing the CEDAW Committee, the paper intends to inform the new government and to seek a dialogue with it on improving federal programs and government actions related to poverty eradication, equity and justice.

The paper begins by emphasizing human rights principles of universality, indivisibility and diversity as well as the current situation of inequality in Brazil, where social exclusion has been conditioned by the absence of the State, following the ‘minimal State’ policy associated with structural adjustment. Even though Brazil ratified most human rights treaties, the existence of fundamental human rights on a legal level has not ensured their actual enjoyment.

The voices and experiences of women from various regions of the country demonstrate that government programs and actions lack coordination, continuity, cohesion, accessibility and comprehensiveness. This is especially the case with regards to women who live away from the large urban centers. The policies do not reach women in their diversity, their specificities and peculiarities. Furthermore, there is a complete absence of an integrated and multidisciplinary policy that sees to women’s needs and tackles inequality.

The paper addresses special attention to four themes, namely:

a) Universality of policies, diversity of women. This chapter presents some comments on the lack of public policies seeking to overcome discrimination against women, the problems that are identified in the few existing policies, the need to design measures to produce structural changes in the various levels of power, and the situation of the health in light of race, geographic location, income and schooling level of women. It further emphasizes the need of resources for the environment, indigenous populations, land reform, agriculture, social security and the care of children and adolescents. Moreover, the paper calls attention to the fact that because of sexist and patriarchal parameters, education does not play its role as an agent of cultural transformation.

b) Limits to women’s citizenship. This chapter addresses several questions that appear as limitations to the exercise of citizenship by women, such as poverty, discriminatory cultural patterns within the family, lack of knowledge on civil rights, non-recognition of the marital status of lesbians living as a married couple, difficulties that are faced by female rural workers, lack of recognition of the domestic work, the lower income of women in comparison to men, political participation, among others.

c) Violence: the various aspects. This chapter focuses on the actual situation and the public policies regarding violence against women. It identifies problems in measures in the administrative, judicial and legislative fields, and comments questions such as sexual harassment in the workplace, trafficking in women and women in prisons.

d) Health: universality, integrity and equity. The chapter on health highlights the failures of the Brazilian State in ensuring qualified services to everybody, covering all stages of life as well as all aspects of women´s health. It calls attention to the regional disparities, the importance of the midwives, the rates of maternal death that could be prevented, the increase of AIDS among the female population, the special needs of black people, adolescents, elderly and lesbians.

After commenting those themes, the paper presents some recommendations to the Brazilian State:

• To ensure the full and free enjoyment of women's human rights, in the light of international and constitutional parameters, which requires measures to harmonize the domestic legal order, revoking discriminatory legal precepts and formulating normative, judicial and policy measures to ensure women's full equality and dignity. A good example is the change of the Criminal Code, which must be urgently modified. (Recommendations 1 and 2)

• To develop economic reforms and improve regulations, legal mechanisms and national policies to increase women's access to financial services and resources, including land, and to the right to education, information, property and technological resources. (Recommendation 3)

• To incorporate a gender perspective and social analysis right across the planning, design, implementation and evaluation of public policies, including training and sensitizing personnel as well as developing monitoring mechanisms and technical-scientific indicators. (Recommendation 4)

• To develop a culture of respect for diversity and to produce a change in the collective imagination and discriminatory patterns through the promotion of social responsibility of the mass media and through the educational system, including reformulating of curricula and teacher-training. (Recommendation 5, 6, 7 and 11)

• To provide women with training to overcome barriers to their political influence in spheres of participative democracy, which involves measures to address the prevalence of the patriarchal model. (Recommendation 8)

• To create indicators which estimate the value of domestic and familial work for incorporation into the GDP. (Recommendation 9)

• To develop public policies considering racial/ethnic factors such as the situation of exclusion of indigenous, forest-dwelling, Northeastern, black and rural women. (Recommendation 10)

• On violence against women, to enact specific legislation as well as to create, implement and monitor public policies involving the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary in the federal, state and municipal level. In addition, to ensure the expansion and equipment of services dealing with violence against women (including prevention of this manifestation of violence), to allocate adequate budget and to create an inter-institutional network of public services. (Recommendations 12 to 16)

• On the field of health, to ensure women full access to integral and quality health care, addressing a special attention to STDs and HIV, breast and cervical cancer as well as prevention of maternal death. Public policies on health must provide adequate treatment for women in all stages of life, including adolescents and elderly. They further must be especially designed to deal with the specific needs of lesbians, women with disabilities, indigenous and forest women, and black women. (Recommendations 17 to 20)

• Regarding black women, who are among the poorest people in Brazil (see paragraph 35), the State must facilitate their access to health services and develop programs to address the diseases that are more likely to appear among black people. (Recommendation 17f)

• To recognize the decriminalization and legalization of abortion as a citizenship right and a public health issue. (Recommendation 21)

• To raise health workers’ awareness of gender and racial/ethnic issues to ensure quality care, especially in cases of domestic violence, sexual abuse, racist attacks or any other form of violence. (Recommendation 22)

NOTES:

1. In addition to the co-conveners, the following national groupings and networks took part in the process: AMB – Articulação de Mulheres Brasileiras (Concerted Action of Brazilian Women), Articulação de ONGs de Mulheres Negras Brasileiras (Network of Organizations of Black Brazilian Women), ANMTR – Articulação Nacional de Mulheres Trabalhadoras Rurais (Concerted Action of Brazilian Rural Women), CNMT/CUT – Comissão Nacional sobre a Mulher Trabalhadora da CUT (National Committee of Women Workers of the CUT trade union congress), MAMA – Movimento Articulado de Mulheres da Amazônia (Movement for the Articulation of the Womem of Amazônia), REDEFEM – Rede Brasileira de Estudos e Pesquisas Feministas (Brazilian Feminist Researchers Network), REDOR – Rede Feminista Norte e Nordeste de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre a Mulher e Relações de Gênero (Feminist Network of Women’s Studies Centers in the Brazilian North and Northeast Regions), Rede Feminista de Saúde – Rede Nacional Feminista de Saúde, Direitos Sexuais e Direitos Reprodutivos (Brazilian Feminist Network for Health and Reproductive Rigths), Rede Nacional de Parteiras Tradicionais (National Network of Traditional Midwives), Rede de Mulheres no Rádio (Women’s Radio Network), Secretaria Nacional da Mulher da CGT – Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores (National Women’s Secretariat of the CGT trade union congress), Secretaria Nacional da Mulher da Força Sindical (Secretariat for Equality and Politics for Women of Força Sindical trade union congress) and UBM – União Brasileira de Mulheres (Brazilian Women’s Union).