Sexual violence is proportionally higher in girls up to 14 years of age

According to the 2024 Atlas of Violence, published on Tuesday (18), girls up to 14 years old are the ones who suffer proportionally more sexual violence compared to adult women in Brazil.

The issue of sexual violence was debated again after Bill 1904 – Anti-Abortion and Rape, which determines that women who have an abortion after 22 weeks of gestation are arrested or hospitalized (in the case of minors under 18 years of age). 

According to experts, girls up to the age of 14 are the ones who most resort to abortion after 22 weeks of gestation. “Six out of ten victims of sexual violence in Brazil are at most 13 years old,” said Samira Bueno, executive director of the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, during the presentation of the Atlas data.

“We are talking about children who do not even understand what they are suffering, who will often discover a pregnancy when they are past the 20th week precisely because they do not understand the violence they are suffering, who do not have the discernment to understand it.”

In 2022, 30.4% of sexual violence suffered was against girls aged 0 to 9 years. Between 10 and 14 years of age, almost half were sexual (49.6%). Between 15 and 19 years old, it was 21.7%. Among young people aged 20 to 24, the rate is lower (10.3%), and tends to decrease until reaching 80 years of age. 

The Atlas of Violence highlights that domestic violence accounted for 65.2% of cases involving women in 2022. Girls aged 0 to 9 years were 15.2% of the victims. Children and adolescents aged up to 14 years accounted for 24.5%, totaling 35,387 cases. Almost half of the victims (49.9%) are women of reproductive age, between 15 and 39 years old. Elderly women accounted for 6.4% of the total, totaling 9,180 cases of victims aged 60 years or older.

According to the data, during the post-pandemic, in the years 2021 and 2022, there was an increase in sexual violence among victims aged 5 to 14 years. The numbers grew by 73% compared to 2020, going from 11,587 registrations in 2020 to 20,039 in 2022. 

For the public defender of the area of children and youth in Rio de Janeiro, Rodrigo Azambuja, the growth does not necessarily come from an increase in rape cases, but rather from the notifications of victims of violence. 

The “Women’s Dossier”, a survey by the Institute of Public Security of Rio de Janeiro  found that there was an increase in notifications in the post-pandemic period.

“In 2022, children and adolescents have already been able to return to school, go to appointments and medical appointments. This is a very important protective factor, because in these spaces they are also cared for by people other than the family and, eventually, signs of sexual violence can be perceived. And as these people have a duty to promote this mandatory notification, we think that underreporting reduced from 2020 to 2022,” said Rodrigo.

For the public defender, measures are needed to combat sexual violence among these girls, which aim at public welfare.

“The major measures are the sexual education of children and adolescents in schools, of course, with language appropriate to the age of each one, so that they can understand that their bodies are inviolable, and also that the public security and justice system can be more friendly,” says Azambuja.

“So that children have more resources, they are centered and organized for the benefit of the child and not according to the logic that would most benefit the organization of these bodies itself. So, we don’t need to change the laws. It is to organize oneself to always attend to and take into account the child, and not that the child conforms to the organs of the justice system.”