Dark secret of women's suffering in Brazil

AS the baking sun rises over the Amazon, the violent town of Ariquemes has woken up to two murders. While the heavily armed military police swing into action, the few officers in the remote mining town’s dilapidated civil police station are struggling to cope with a heavy workload.

Sitting alone in the unlit waiting room, a woman waits to be seen.

She was chased into the station that morning by her husband who was brandishing a meat cleaver. Just a few metres away in the station’s courtyard he stands behind bars with his head bowed, in an open cell which is little more than a cage.

Brazil, famed for its vibrancy and colour, hides a dark secret. Some 4,500 women a year are murdered in the country, one every two hours, usually at home and by their partners.

Police officer Danubio Eurgel sees violence against women every day.

“This guy will be taken to the local prison and the judge will look at the case,” he said in a brief moment between taking phone calls in his windowless office. But he is likely to be released to return to his wife the following day, he admits, his eyes moving distractedly to a day time television show flickering on a screen in the corner of his office.

“I think these punishments should be more severe,” he said, before adding resignedly, “Brazil is a very violent country, violence against women is a part of that.”

Violence against women affects every aspect of society in Brazil, a country dominated by machismo culture. In 2013, the country was captivated by the trial of star footballer Bruno Fernandes, who was jailed for over two decades for ordering the murder of his girlfriend, who was dismembered and fed to his dogs.

But while the revolutionary Maria da Penha law to protect women from violence has offered some help to women in the cities, in Ariquemes – a low-rise settlement constructed on red earth near to the Bolivian border and many hundreds of miles from any major city – it has made little difference.

It is a fact all too well known to Reverend Elineide Oliveiro, a 29-year-old priest who runs the only safe house in for women in Ariquemes, covering a region of 150,000 people.

With baby photos stuck to the walls and flowers and herbs growing prettily in containers outside, Casa de Noeli feels like a home until a closer examination reveals the electric fence running past the windows and the heavily bolted front door.

Until recently having bought a car, Elineide travelled between the police station and the safe house with victims on the back of her moped. A dark-haired, slight and determined woman, she bravely puts her own safety at risk by standing up to gun-carrying, angry men.

But more often than not, the lack of cooperation from the police can be her biggest problem, with officers tipping husbands off that their wives have been in touch or refusing to intervene in “family matters” even when women are at risk of being killed.

The safe house was established in the town by Christian Aid partner Anglican Service on Diaconia and Development (SADD) and has only been running for a number of years but has already had to move after a member of the police revealed its location.

Elineide has her own reason for wanting to help women. Her sister Elione was attacked by her husband who brutally stabbed her seven times when she told him she wanted a divorce. Elione survived the attack and is now a member of care staff in the safe house.

Reverend Elineide Oliveiro, the manager of the Ariquemes safe house, and her sister Elione

Elineide said: “I felt very committed and inspired to do this because of my own family situation and so I took over the running of the house.”

It can be a job fraught with tragedy. Elineide and the house psychologist Lucymory recount the horrific case of an eight-year-old boy in the town who tried to stop his father from beating his mother with an iron bar. The child was so badly injured in the attack he was paralysed, and his mother lost an eye.

It is for families in such dangerous situations, to whom the safe house can offer hope.

The church shapes society for good or bad in Brazil, she said, and while many conservative religious leaders believe families should deal with their problems in private and choose to ignore violence against women, that will never be something she can accept.

“I am exercising my ministry here. The role of the church is not just to get people together and say that everybody is happy with their lives – what I do here is a way of opening the church to this kind of reality. For me, this is the gospel.”

‘Without a safe house I would be dead’

HAVEN: Frances Mary at the safe house in Ariquemes

FEW people can have experienced fear like Frances Mary.

Her husband Joao is in prison awaiting trial for the murder of 12 people – among them her father and brother. They were killed on the two instances 25-year-old Frances Mary tried to leave him.

The young woman sits beside Elineide in the safe house bedroom she had previously shared with her two young sons.

A whirring fan disperses the sweltering heat, causing the children’s drawings on the wall to flicker as she explains that although her husband is in prison, she remains in hiding as his brother is looking for her.

“They were the worst moments of my life,” she said about their marriage, “I can’t describe it; living with him was the worst part of my life.

“I was forced to return to him because I was threatened by him. He killed my father and brother, and he threatened to kill me if I left. And he is a very dangerous man, he always carried a gun. I reported him to the police station numerous times, but nothing happened. The police force did nothing.”

She met Joao when she was only 13 – five years below the legal age of consent in Brazil – and he was 20.

While her father disliked him, after a month of dating the couple began living together and two years later the violence started. She believes Joao was repeating the same behaviour he had seen his father use towards his mother but that he was also showing his dominance.

“It’s about power,” she said, “In my experience, when my husband used to beat me, immediately afterwards he’d want to have sex with me to show the power. He owns me, it’s about property and the women are property.”

The violence came to a boiling point last year when Frances Mary returned from her job in a supermarket and he beat her up. “I decided to leave then and there,” she said, “I went back to the supermarket and I quit my job. Then I went to the police station, I reported it and I was welcomed into the safe house.”

She was in such danger she needed a 24-hour police guard.

After three months she went to live with her sister in a rural, riverside part of the Amazon basin.

All the locals were told to look out for Joao, until one day the alarm was raised that he was looking for her.

“No one wanted to tell him where I was, they were trying to protect me. So he went to a bar, got drunk and got in a fight and out of rage he killed a man in the bar.

“Now he’s in jail and he has been for six months, for the killing, not for what he has done to me.

“He is awaiting trial. He is very dangerous, and after this killing, they found out about other murders he has committed.”

Frances Mary says her hope in the future is to find work and to have her children, who live with her mother-in-law, returned to her.

Elineide’s eyes fill with tears as Frances Mary explains how the safe house has saved her life.

“Elineide is just like a mother, she said, “Wherever I go, or wherever we go, she’s here with us.

“The safe house is a special place and is very good, and it’s because of this house I’m alive, if I didn’t have the house I would be scared and in the same cycle, being beaten and threatened... The house is very important to break the cycle. And without it, today I’d probably be dead.”
 

• Kate Liptrot travelled to Brazil as a guest of Christian Aid. Christian Aid works with some of the poorest people in almost 50 countries, through local partner organisations, to end poverty.

• This Christian Aid Week (May 10 to 16) thousands of volunteers across the UK will take part in Britain’s longest running door-to-door fundraising week to raise money for its vital work with communities like those in Brazil featured here.

• You can help to change the lives of women in places like Brazil this Christian Aid Week by donating online at caweek.org, phoning 08080 006 006, or texting ‘WEEK’ to 70040 to give £5.

In The Press next Wednesday, Kate will visit a Christian Aid project supporting Sao Paulo’s street traders and will report on the work being done locally to support these international projects.