The cases of rape and rape of the vulnerable notified last year to the police authorities reached 74,930, which represents 36.9 in each group of 100,000 inhabitants. The number is 8.2% higher than that recorded in 2021, according to data released this Thursday (20), in the Brazilian Public Security Yearbook 2023, by the Brazilian Public Security Forum. Rape cases totaled 18,110 victims in 2022, a 7% increase compared to the previous year, and vulnerable rape cases, 56,820 victims, 8.6% more than in the previous year. According to the data, 24.2% of the victims were men and women over 14 years old, and 75.8% were capable of consenting, either because of their age (under 14 years old), or for any other reason (disability, illness, etc.). Only 8.5% of rapes in Brazil are reported to the police and 4.2% by health information systems. Thus, according to the estimate, the level of rape cases in Brazil is 822 thousand cases per year. The survey reveals that children and adolescents continue to be the main victims of sexual violence: 10.4% of rape victims were babies and children aged up to 4 years; 17.7% of the victims were between 5 and 9 years old and 33.2% between 10 and 13 years old. That is, 61.4% were at most 13 years old. Approximately 8 out of 10 victims of sexual violence were minors. By Brazilian law, a person is only able to consent from the age of 14. According to the yearbook, last year, 88.7% of the victims were female and 11.3% were male; 56.8% were black or brown (in the previous year, they were 52.2%); 42.3% white; 0.5%, indigenous; and 0.4%, yellow. “Although we don’t have research on the subject in Brazil, it is common to hear reports from education professionals, or even police officers, who indicate that it was the teacher who noticed differences in the child’s behavior and first learned about the abuse. Thus, the school plays a fundamental role in identifying episodes of violence, but mainly in providing the necessary knowledge for children to understand about sexual abuse and be able to protect themselves”, says the yearbook. Still according to the yearbook, it is common for the child not to be able to recognize the abuse, either due to lack of knowledge or because of a bond with the aggressor. “It is understandable that the child has some feeling of love, or even loyalty, for the abuser, since in general the abuse is practiced by parents, stepparents, grandparents and other family members. In addition, the abuser tends to manipulate the child with threats or bribes, which guarantees the victim’s silence. The feeling of guilt or shame is usually present in the child, who ends up not revealing anything to family members.” According to the records, 82.7% of the abusers are known to the victims and 17.3% are unknown. Among children and adolescents aged up to 13 years, the main perpetrators are family members (64.4% of cases) and 21.6% are known to the victim, but without a family relationship. Among victims aged 14 or over, it is noteworthy that 24.4% of the abuses were perpetrated by the victim’s intimate partners or former partners, 37.9% by family members and 15% by other acquaintances. Only 22.8% of rapes of people over 14 years old were committed by strangers. Home is the place that appears most frequently, since on average, 68.3% of the combined cases of rape and rape of a vulnerable person occurred in the victim’s home. The proportion of vulnerable rapes that occur at home is 71.6% and of rapes, 57.8%. The public road was the location indicated in 17.4% of the rape records and in 6.8% of the vulnerable ones. Most cases of sexual violence (53.3%) occur at night or early morning (between 6 pm and 5:59 am). As for the occurrences of rape of a vulnerable person, which mainly affect children, the majority (65.1%) occurred during the day, between 6:00 am and 11:59 am, or between noon and 5:59 pm, a period when the mother or caregiver is generally away. According to Juliana Brandão, from the Brazilian Public Security Forum, the number of rape cases is the highest since the institution began to monitor such occurrences, and it is difficult to attribute the increase to a single factor, mainly because it is an extremely complex crime, which has its specificities. “In this case, we are talking about children up to 13 years old, considered vulnerable. This increase in numbers is just an increase in notifications, because the crime of rape itself is already a crime that, due to its nature, already has a lot of underreporting. When we are looking at this universe of more children and adolescents, it is even more difficult to imagine that children and adolescents were responsible for notifying the great violence they suffered, ”she said. For Juliana, it is possible that this result is the result of a set of factors that can be explained, in part, by the greater empowerment of the victims, but one cannot forget to analyze that there are people who are being the vectors of this official communication to the authorities, the adults. “And it is these adults who managed, somehow, to function by doing this mediation, listening to the reports of children and adolescents and taking them to the police so that the registration was carried out”, she added.
Agência Brasil
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