Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women considers report of Brazil

Committee on Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women

17 February 2012

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women today considered the seventh periodic report of Brazil on how that country is implementing the provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Introducing the report, Eleonora Menicucci de Oliveira, Minister of the Secretariat of Policies for Women of the Presidency of Brazil, said that today’s presentation had a special meaning for Brazil, who had recently elected its very first woman President. The 2011 National Plan for Women proved that consensus on the structural causes of ethnic, racial and gender inequalities in Brazil were growing. The Plan featured actions to guarantee the human rights of women and gender equality. A new anti-poverty plan called ‘Brazil Without Misery’ had in its first six months identified families living in extreme poverty and implemented programmes benefiting poor rural women. Brazil had launched a plan to increase the competitiveness of industry and create new jobs in order to improve situation of women in employment. In 2007 The National Covenant to Combat Violence against Women was launched, covering major areas including wide implementation of the anti-domestic violence Maria da Penha Law; guaranteed security and access to justice for women; guaranteed reproductive rights; and autonomy of women in situations of violence. Maternal mortality rates had been reduced through education and capacity building of traditional birth attendants, improvement of prenatal health services, right to transport to maternity wards and the promotion of mother-centred births.

During the discussion, Experts asked about the Second National Plan for Women Policies and challenges and obstacles in reaching its targets; the activities of Brazil to combat human trafficking, and the innovative and progressive Maria da Penha Law of 2006 on longer sentences for perpetrators of domestic violence, challenges to the constitutionality of that law and the passivity of courts to implement its provisions. Experts noted that the number of women prisoners had almost doubled since 2006, and asked about the human rights of women in detention, including measures to protect women prisoners from rape. The Equality in the Workplace Act, protection measures for domestic workers, measures to close the 40 per cent gender pay gap and protection for women from sexual harassment in the workplace were also raised. The Committee also raised the issue of unsafe and illegal abortion in Brazil, which was of great concern to it.

In concluding remarks, Eleonora Menicucci de Oliveira, Minister of the Secretariat of Policies for Women of the Presidency of Brazil, thanked the Committee for the very careful analysis and examination of the report. Their questions and comments would ensure that policies that sought to improve women’s right in Brazil made headway and that Brazil was on the right path to guaranteeing women’s rights.

The delegation of Brazil consisted of the representatives of the Secretariat of Policies for Women of the Presidency of Brazil, three women Senators, five Congresswomen, University of Brasilia, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Agrarian Development, Ministry of Social Welfare, Ministry of Environment, Secretariat of Policies for the Promotion of Equality, National Council of Women’s Rights and National Forum for Black Women, Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Articulation of Brazilian Black Women’s Organizations.

The next public meeting of the Committee will be at 3 p.m. on Monday, 20 February when it will informally meet with non-governmental organizations and national human rights institutions.

Report

The seventh periodic report of Brazil can be read here: (CEDAW/ BRA/Q/7).

Presentation of the Report

ELEONORA MENICUCCI DE OLIVEIRA, Minister of the Secretariat of Policies for Women of the Presidency of Brazil, said that today’s presentation had a special meaning for Brazil, who had recently elected its very first women Head of State, President Dilma Rousseff. The President was committed to improving the lives of women in Brazil, and increasing the number of women in the Government, and both public and private sectors. Brazil played an important role in the region and chaired the regional conference on women of Latin America and the Caribbean, but still needed to make more progress to achieve full gender equality. The National Plan for Women, launched in 2011, proved that consensus on the structural causes of ethnic, racial and gender inequalities in Brazil was growing. The Plan featured actions to guarantee the human rights of women and gender equality. In December 2011 The National Conference on Women Policies took place, attended by 28,000 participants who debated women’s autonomy in all its aspects, and adopted the issue as a priority for the Secretariat for Policies for Women.

During the last presidency great strides had been made in lifting people out of poverty and building up the middle class in society. A new anti-poverty plan called ‘Brazil Without Misery’ had in its first six months identified families living in extreme poverty and implemented programmes benefiting poor rural women. Structural inequalities needed to be addressed to achieve equality and lift people out of poverty. Employment was central, and Brazil had launched a plan to increase the competitiveness of industry and create new jobs. Measures to address discrimination against women in the field of employment included a new August 2011 law which addressed wages and the social security of domestic workers.

The aim of combating violence against women was boosted by the Supreme Court’s ruling that the 2006 Maria da Penha Law on domestic violence was indeed constitutional and hadn’t infringed on the inequality principle. The Maria da Penha Law was known to 98 per cent of the Brazilian population, and several independent studies concluded that between 70 to 90 per cent of women victims of domestic violence had heard references to it. In 2007 The National Covenant to Combat Violence against Women was launched covering major areas including wide implementation of the Maria da Penha Law; guaranteed security and access to justice for women; guaranteed reproductive rights; and autonomy of women in situations of violence. In the area of maternal health Brazil had seen progress, particularly in a reduction of maternal mortality. Some measures included education and capacity building of traditional birth attendants, improvement of prenatal health services, right to transport to maternity wards and the promotion of mother-centred birth.

Questions by Experts

An Expert noted that the Constitution of Brazil did define discrimination as laid out in Article 1 of the Convention. How did Brazil interpret the content of Article 7 of the Constitution in relation to domestic workers?

Another Expert asked the delegation to explain and clarify the differences between approved and allocated budgets and the consequences of budgetary shortfalls on the work of the Secretariat. What challenges and obstacles had been identified in reaching the targets and specific objectives of the Second National Plan for Women Policies? What national level mechanism ensured implementation of decisions by treaty bodies?

Response by Delegation

The delegation said that the definition of discrimination was to be found on the Second Plan of Goals on Women Policies and in the amended Article 5 of the Constitution.

The National Congress had a special Commission to rescind Article 7 of the Constitution on domestic workers. That Commission was monitored by the Secretariat for Women Policies. Budgetary cuts hadn’t impacted on the work of the Secretariat, as it counted on special parliamentary allocation to fund its work. On decentralization, the delegation said that in Brazil, which was a large country, laws and policies were promulgated on a federal level and then handed down to municipalities for implementation.

The Secretariat had set up the Committee for monitoring of the Second National Plan, which since 2008 had also included electronic monitoring. That system had been further improved in 2010 and 2011 and provided date on activities across ministries on a six-month basis. Data had been made available also to civil society. Statistics on women’s issues was connected to racial issues and there was now an effort within Brazil to present gender disaggregated data. The Brazilian Annuary offered the first set of gender disaggregated data for a number of sectors, including health, employment and agriculture. There was no specific mechanism in Brazil for the implementation of recommendations by treaty bodies. Instead, working groups were composed of different organs of the Government were usually created, and coordinated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Questions by Experts

Experts said that the report was not always clear about the undertaking of special temporary measures as laid down by the Convention for the benefit of particular groups, and their impact on those groups. That was particularly the case for women.

Brazil was congratulated on the adoption in 2006 of the innovative and progressive Maria da Penha Law and asked for a clarification on why the judiciary was passive and negative in the implementation of that law. Could the delegation give more information about the challenging of the constitutionality of that law, since it was impeding its implementation on the ground? What training was given to the judiciary as recommended by the Convention?

On human rights of women in detention, the Expert said the number of female prisoners had almost doubled since 2006 and asked for an explanation, and also how Brazil addressed the issue of rape in prisons.

Regarding the Second Plan on Human Trafficking, what phase of implementation was it in, did it have a central coordinating mechanism and budget, who was responsible for its monitoring and evaluation, and what support and assistance system was provided for victims of human trafficking?

Response by Delegation

On special temporary measures, the delegation said the Brazilian Government was working to eradicate patriarchal perceptions, such as amendments to the voting law which increased participation of women in politics and government. Quotas for the black population, and particularly black women, were being discussed by the Congress.

On gender and race, the delegation highlighted two programmes from the Poverty Reduction Strategy which targeted families in need. Affirmative action included mandatory inclusion of women in policy-making in the agricultural sector and increased access to credit and loans. The difficult situation of women of African descent were often due to stereotypes and negative presentation of black people and Government was addressing that issue through promotion of racial equality, combating racial discrimination and information campaigns.

The delegation agreed with all the comments made by Experts concerning the Maria da Penha law, and said that there were 94 Courts in charge of its implementation. Also the national Covenant on Health had sections incorporating provisions of the Maria da Penha law. Under the National Covenant for Combating violence against women a budget was allocated for protection of women prisoners, which included enlarging the female wings of prison buildings. There was also a helpline which provided advice on violence against women in prisons.

The delegation said numbers of female prisoners had doubled as a result of gender discrimination and a greater involvement of women being used as “mules” in drug trafficking.

Combating human trafficking could be effective only if coordinated with the Secretariat for Women’s Policies and the Ministry of Health, said the delegation. The Second Plan was currently being completed, and contained an inter-sectoral approach to overcome challenges identified during the implementation of the First Plan. The agenda to stop trafficking of women was only recently brought to the attention of the Ministry of Health, which then undertook research into the issue and developed a national plan for capacity building and a series of information sessions on the issue.

Questions from Experts

An Expert referred to the Committee’s previous recommendations to increase participation of women in the political life and asked about concrete barriers to the new law that gave a 30 per cent presence in public sphere to women. The Expert also asked about the right of persons with disabilities to vote, and how that right was enjoyed on a municipal level.

There were variations among different groups of women in education; rural, indigenous and black women had higher illiteracy rates. How would the 2012 programme meet literacy goals for those groups and for the economically disadvantaged? How did gender and sexual orientation impact on access to education in Brazil?

Had the Equality in the Workplace Act finally been adopted and would it contain adequate protection from sexual harassment in the workplace? Furthermore, would that Act have any impact on domestic workers? An Expert noted that there were more than 500,000 child domestic workers in Brazil, most of them black girls who were missing out on their education, and asked what actions Brazil was taking to address the issue.

Gender pay gaps in Brazil were considerable. Men with higher education were on average paid 40 per cent more that women with same education level. What measures were in place to address that inequality?

Regarding women’s health; the report was entirely focused on maternal health. What were main causes of female mortality in Brazil and in comparison with man? Concerning the very ambitious strategic programmes to improve maternal health, the Expert asked how Brazil planned to organize and coordinate the institutions to implement the “Stork Network” programme. Could the delegation explain the programme on combating HIV/AIDS in the workplace?

Unsafe abortions in Brazil were an issue of great concern to that Committee, which had already recommended that Brazil decriminalize abortion. The high maternal mortality rates were a direct consequence of the criminalization of abortion. About 500,000 women ended up in hospitals each year because of botched abortions, most of them disadvantaged women of rural or black origins. What was Brazil going to do to address that issue, including on the legislative front, and in ensuring confidentiality of the pregnancy register?

Rural women, including black and indigenous women, were disproportionately affected by extreme poverty, lacked employment and civil documents and were more exposed to violence. The delegation was asked to provide information on measures and actions undertaken by the Government to address discrimination and violence against rural women.

Response from the Delegation

Brazilian women were very proud of their woman President, two women Senators, two women Vice-Presidents and ten women Ministers, a delegate said. That would ensure attention was given to gender and race issues in Brazil. A special Committee had been set up in both chambers of the Congress to address political reform and ensure feminine outlook in all proposals. Women were also included in municipal boards to ensure that their voices were heard; some of the municipalities had plans for improvement of female participation. There was already a consensus for Brazil to find a solution to the low levels of women in judiciary.

The President had launched a new programme ‘Live without Limitations’ which promoted education and inclusion of persons with disabilities. The delegation would later provide further data on the right to vote of persons with disabilities on municipal levels.

Responding education, the delegation said Brazil was well aware of the need to improve education levels of women and close the literacy gap, particularly of those who were disadvantaged. The Government had introduced quotas and developed partnerships with universities, which opened up jobs to people from the public education system, thus enabling youth and in particular disadvantaged youth, to attend higher education. Secondly the Government was expanding the network of universities at municipal levels making them more accessible to the population.

A number of programmes developed in the framework of gender and diversity addressed primary and middle school and high education, with the aim of combating discrimination and inequality. Women and girls indeed had lower access to primary education than boys, which was linked to the issue of income of rural women.

Women needed to fight for a reduction in wage gaps. The pay gap did indeed exist and the Government had in place a number of programmes aimed at closing that gap.

Sexual harassment in the workplace was an issue of constant concern for the Government and Parliament. Brazil had developed a multiannual programme which included the public and private sector, to protect teenagers and youth from sexual harassment. The workplace needed to be looked at both inside and outside of homes and how one negotiated at home and out of it.

On domestic work, the delegation said that in Brazil many women were employed and more than 90 per cent of domestic workers were women. Consequently Brazil had been active in negotiating International Labour Organization Convention 189 on domestic workers, and was gearing internally to ratify that text. There was a proposal for a constitutional amendment to Article 7 to also include the rights of domestic workers.

Regarding unsafe abortions, there was currently a draft bill in Parliament which aimed to prevent deaths of women and girls from unsafe abortions. The right to confidentiality of pregnant women who decided to register in the system was preserved and the Government was committed to preserving the confidentiality of the registry. The only people who could access it were people managing it. Its purpose was monitoring of the quality of assistance and care provided to pregnant women. Many maternal deaths in Brazil today were due to poor pre and postnatal care and Government needed data to develop appropriate interventions.

Primary causes of female mortality in Brazil were cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and hypertension and most were related to excessive working hours, stress in the workplace and at home, and smoking. Birthing centres had been built in almost all municipalities to combat high maternal mortality rates.

On the training of professionals in the health sector, the Ministry of Health had its own Secretariat for Training, which worked in coordination with Ministry of Education to mainstream health and gender issues in respective curricula.

The National Forum for Combating Violence against Women also included violence against women in the rural areas. It was conducting training and information campaigns and provided mobile care units in rural areas. Progress was made in providing necessary documentation to people of Brazil and specific efforts were made to address that problem in rural areas. That was linked to “Brazil without Misery” programme which was also addressing rural poverty, as equality in poverty was determined by the economic condition of women and level of income she enjoyed.

Questions from Experts

In follow-up questions a Committee Expert said that remains of discriminatory practices in women and marriage could still be found in legislation and sought clarification. Could the delegation explain what administrative divorce procedure were, particularly when children were involved? Furthermore, how were rights of same sex couples guaranteed in unions?

Response from the Delegation

Important achievements had been made through judicial proceedings, especially of the Supreme Court, which allowed same sex couples to register their civil union. Inheritance rights, pension rights and other rights were thus acquired, and in case of separation, right to alimony payment. The jurisprudence was the framework in which procedures would be developed until legislation was in place.

On family and marriage legislation, the delegation said that the Civil Code of 2003 brought into balance the power between man and woman including custody, alimony and separation rights. Administrative separation was possible in Brazil and it generally occurred when there were no children. The public ministry would always be involved if there were children and particularly if there was dispute over custody.

Concluding remarks

ELEONORA MENICUCCI DE OLIVEIRA, Minister of the Secretariat of Policies for Women of the Presidency of Brazil, thanked the Committee for its very careful analysis and examination of the report. Their questions and comments would ensure that policies that sought to improve women’s right in Brazil made headway. The delegation heard solidarity with women in Brazil and it was clear that Brazil was on the right path to guaranteeing women’s rights. The Committee was an ally in the battle to end discrimination against women.

__________

For use of the information media; not an official record