RIO DE JANEIRO - May 25, 2013 - The attacks have stunned this
city. In one, an assailant held a gun to the head of a 30-year-old woman while
raping her in front of passengers on a bus as the driver proceeded down a main
avenue. In another, a 14-year-old girl from a hillside slum was raped on one of
Rio’s most famous stretches of beach.
In yet another case, men abducted and raped a
working-class woman in a transit van as it wended through densely populated
areas. The police failed to investigate, and a week later the same men raped a
21-year-old American student in the same van, pummeling her face and beating
her male companion with a metal bar.
“Unfortunately, it had to happen to her before anyone
would help me,” said the Brazilian woman raped in the transit van. “I was like,
‘Could this have been avoided if they had paid attention to my case?’ ”
A recent wave of rapes in Rio — some captured on video
cameras — have cast a spotlight on the unresolved contradictions of a nation
that is coming of age as a world power. Brazil has a woman as president, a
woman as a powerful police commander and a woman as the head of its national
oil company — and yet, it was not until an American was raped that the
authorities got fully involved and arrested suspects in the case.
In some ways, Brazil’s experience echoes recent events
in India and Egypt, where horrific attacks have prompted outrage and soul
searching, revealing deep fissures in each society. In Brazil, it has unleashed
a debate about whether the authorities are more concerned about defending the
privileged and Rio’s international image than about protecting women at large.
In India, the recent death of a student, who was gang-raped as
her male companion was beaten on a bus under similar circumstances, has
highlighted a prevailing view that women, no matter how much progress they
make, are still fair game, unprotected by an ineffectual government.
And in Egypt, where the collapse of the old police
state has led to an outbreak of sexual assaults in Tahrir Square in
Cairo, some newly emboldened conservative Islamists publicly blame the women,
saying they put themselves in harm’s way.
It is perhaps paradoxical that the issue has popped up
so forcefully in Brazil, a country that has gone to great lengths to protect
and promote women’s rights. There are special cars for women to ride on trains
to avoid being groped, as in parts of India. There are special police stations
here staffed largely by women. And there is a general view that holds women as
equal, fully capable of excelling in even the most powerful posts.
“We’re living a schizophrenic situation, in which
important advances have been made in women reaching positions of influence in
our society,” said Rogéria Peixinho, a director of the Brazilian Women’s
Network, a rights group here. “At the same time, the situation for many women
who are poor remains atrocious.”
Indeed, the public discussion about the string of
sexual assaults in Rio was relatively muted before the American student was
attacked in late March after boarding a transit van in Copacabana, a beachfront
district frequented by tourists. The reason, some experts argue, was that the
earlier victims were largely poor or working class, reflecting one of Brazil’s
enduring struggles: extreme class divisions in society.
“For a large part of the political leadership, these
rapes only get to be a concern if they affect someone rich or damage Brazil’s
image abroad,” said Malu Fontes, a newspaper columnist who criticized the lack
of attention paid to rapes of poor women in Rio, which is preparing to hold the
2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
“We like to believe in Brazil that we live in a peaceful,
happy place, when the truth of our existence is far more complicated,” she
said. “It’s like we’re Narcissus gazing into a pool of sewage.”
Rio’s public security officials acknowledge that they
have faced a sharp increase in the number of reported rape cases, which surged
24 percent last year to 1,972 in the city. But they argue that the increase has
taken place nationally, reflecting a change in legislation in 2009 to broaden
the definition of rape to include oral and anal penetration, as well as efforts
to make it easier for women to file rape complaints.
Brazil has made strides in its efforts to reduce
violence against women. As early as the 1980s, it helped pioneer the creation
of police stations with female officers to help victims register domestic
violence, sexual assaults and other gender-related crimes. And in 2006,
legislation was enacted nationwide intended to establish special courts for
prosecuting acts of domestic violence with stricter sentences.
But while Rio’s authorities have succeeded in lowering
rates of certain violent crimes, like homicides, the recent rapes have focused
new attention on the dangers of riding Rio’s buses and vans, an essential part
of life for many residents.
In the days after the rape of the American student,
Mayor Eduardo Paes announced a ban on transit vans, which are privately owned
and sometimes operating without permits, in Rio’s prosperous South Zone. The
ban prompted criticism that the mayor was giving priority to the safety of
wealthy seaside areas over grittier parts of the city where the vans are still
allowed to operate.
A spokesman for Mr. Paes countered that the ban was not
related to the rapes, but part of a broader public transportation plan under
consideration for months. The spokesman added that the mayor had also forbidden
vans to tint their windows, in an effort to prevent crimes within the vehicles.
Officials in the state of Rio de Janeiro said that
rapes in buses, vans or subway cars accounted for less than 1 percent of all
cases in recent years. “There are no signs of an epidemic of rapes within
public transportation,” said Pedro Dantas, a spokesman for Rio’s public safety
department.
Still, the string of cases in Rio, including the rape of
a 12-year-old girl on a bus last year, are part of a larger pattern of attacks
and harassment aboard transit vehicles in several cities, including two rapes
this month around the capital, Brasília. In the city of Curitiba, lawmakers are
reviewing a bill that would introduce women’s-only buses.
Eleonora Menicucci, Brazil’s minister for women’s
affairs, noted that no nation was immune to shocking crimes against women,
pointing to the abduction and long imprisonment of three women in Cleveland.
But she said Brazil had worked hard to encourage women
to come forward to report rapes, and she contended that perpetrators would be
prosecuted regardless of the backgrounds of the assailants or the victims. She
cited a case in the city of Queimadas, where six men from relatively privileged
circumstances were swiftly arrested, tried and convicted last year in the gang
rape of five women, two of whom were killed after recognizing their assailants.
But critics remain skeptical, arguing that the main
reason the rape of the 14-year-old girl from a slum drew public attention was
that it occurred on the beach in front of Leblon, one of Rio’s most exclusive
neighborhoods.
Sérgio Cabral, Rio’s governor, called the assault on the American student an “atrocity” but emphasized that he did not expect it to affect the image of Rio, which he was said was experiencing a “forceful moment with big events and investments.”