Violence mars Brazil’s ascendance, but activists and the government take action.
Hosting the 2016 Olympics and emerging as an economic
powerhouse, Brazil is headed swiftly toward a more prominent place on
the world stage. But the country can’t shake off an epidemic more
indicative of smaller, often poverty-stricken nations: pervasive
violence against LGBT people.
Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder
Monitoring project in November revealed that among the 265 murders of
trans people reported globally in the preceding 12 months, 126 of them
were in Brazil, the largest number of any country. It was the only
country with triple digits (notoriously biased Pakistan had five
reported killings, for example), and according to the monitoring
project, it’s only getting worse. In 2008, 57 trans killings were
reported in Brazil.
A well-publicized 2011 report from the gay
rights organization Grupo Gay da Bahía found attacks and murders on the
rise; LGBT people were being bashed once every 36 hours. And last fall
at least 15 gay activists in Curitiba, a prominent southern city,
received death threats.
“You are going to die, you, your husband,
and your son. Your mother is a dyke,” was the phone message left for
Toni Reis, president of the Brazilian Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual,
Transvestite, and Transsexual Association.
But unlike those in
Jamaica, Russia, or Uganda, officials in Brazil are working to curb
homophobic violence. After Reis and the other activists reported the
disturbing phone calls and emails, the Human Rights Secretariat of
Brazil sent several of its people to Curitiba to interview those
threatened. The national officials met with local law enforcement, which
set up a special committee to investigate the threats (no one’s been
arrested yet). Meanwhile, the federal government operates a 24-hour
national telephone service for LGBT people to report violence and
discrimination, and the federal government is forming “pacts” with the
27 state governments to stem homophobia, which Reis says derives from
Christian sources.
“Religious intolerance among some evangelical
groups against LGBT people is increasing,” he says, adding that many
church leaders actively lobby politicians against gay rights.
Evangelical
Protestants, especially, have pushed back against efforts by the
Brazilian government to protect the nation’s LGBT people. Last year,
even before the Grupo Gay da Bahía report made international headlines,
liberal legislators introduced a bill to outlaw anti-LGBT bias,
providing jail time for those discriminating or inciting violence
against LGBT people. Conservative Christians said the legislation would
make it impossible for them to preach against homosexuality, and the
bill was watered down as a result of their efforts.
Even with many gay-supportive government leaders, Reis admits, “Progress is slow and impunity continues to reign.”
http://www.advocate.com/print-issue/current-issue/2013/01/10/fighting-back-brazil
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