Photo by ELAS+ Giving for Change
By Wania Sant’Anna, ELAS+ Giving for Change
In South America, Brazil is a country with unique and special historical and geographical characteristics. Colonised by the Portuguese between the 16th and 19th centuries, Brazil is the only country on the continent whose official language is Portuguese. Its territorial extension is colossal – 8 million square kilometres, slightly smaller than the European continent with nearly fifty countries. This continental geographical feature, encompassing a rich and diverse combination of biomes, along with an estimated population of 203 million people (2022 census), could turn this territory into an immeasurable source of social and economic prosperity. However, this is not the reality for its inhabitants, especially Brazilian women.
According to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE)1, the official agency responsible for collecting and disseminating national social and economic indicators, in 2021, Brazil reached 62.5 million people living below the poverty line, of which 17.9 million were in extreme poverty. In percentage terms, this means that, in 2021, 29.4% of Brazilians were poor while 8.4% were extremely poor.
Going into further details about those most affected by this profile of social and economic vulnerability, we find something equally alarming: around 62.8% of households headed by single women with children under 14 years of age lived below the poverty line. Additionally, the proportion of self-declared black people living below the poverty line was 37.9%, nearly twice the proportion of self-declared white people, whose percentage was 18.6%. This higher vulnerability of the black population would already be a significant problem, but it becomes even more challenging given the fact that self-declared black people constitute 56% of the total population of Brazil.
Organisations within the black movement and black women’s movement argue that the social and economic vulnerability of the black population results from evident and measurable practices of racial discrimination and racism historically present in Brazilian society. Furthermore, these organisations contend that Brazilian social inequality has deep roots in the history of slavery, limited access to social inclusion, and the persistent denial of racism as an important variable in the violation of rights and citizenship for this majority segment of the population.
Indeed, the central point of this debate is the necessity to recognise racism as an important dimension of the indicators that confine the black population to higher rates of unemployment and greater participation in the informal work sector, lower wages, higher rates of school dropout, limited access to public health services, greater vulnerability in housing conditions and less access to basic sanitation services. It is not coincidental that favelas in Brazil are predominantly inhabited by black people and that these areas are also the primary target of disastrously coordinated police actions throughout the country’s public security system.
In this context of fragility and violations, black women, their families, and their communities suffer the most. There is no doubt that racial violence is a significant hallmark of racism in Brazilian society and is evident in numerous cases of racial discrimination in education, work environments, and public relations – with aggravating factors of moral and sexual harassment. It is notable in the precarious access to public health services, with obstetric violence being an undeniable example of the extent of racial violence affecting the rights to health and reproductive rights of black women. It is also notable in indicators of domestic and family violence among black women and in the soaring rates of femicide among black women. In 2020, 67% of femicides reported in Brazil involved black women as victims.
There are also the unquestionable indicators of homicide among black trans and travesti women throughout the country and in record-breaking indicators of incarceration of the black population – in 2022, 67.4% of the 820.689 incarcerated individuals were black people. Further, there is a striking rate of homicide among black youth and men. When we look at the historical data2 it is alarming – between 2009 and 2019, 439.740 black people were killed in the country – almost half a million people!
Thus, and not by chance, ELAS+ Giving for Change, the first fund to support women in Brazil, systematically supports groups, collectives, and networks of black women throughout the country. This decision is the result of a structural analysis of women’s right to a life free from violence. Moreover, ELAS’+ decision is based on the belief that philanthropy can effectively address racism and racial discrimination in Brazil by providing effective support to organisations of black women and the practices these organisations undertake to protect and elevate their families and communities, including actions aimed at improving public policies to reduce social inequalities and combat racism.
In Brazil, ELAS+ was the first organisation that supported initiatives led by women to define organisations of black women as a priority beneficiary group. In 2022, ELAS+ supported 214 groups led by women, which corresponds to 79% of the total supported groups. In the same year, it launched a specific programme for this segment – the Black Women Alliance – All Against Violence. The programme was initiated by ELAS+, in partnership with the Ford Foundation.
A national call for proposals selected 16 organisations and networks, with experience in activism, to work on addressing institutional racism and the genocide of the black population, anti-racial violence communication, and the fight against violence against black women and black trans individuals.
Moreover, ELAS’+ decision is based on the belief that philanthropy can effectively address racism and racial discrimination by providing effective support to organisations of black women and the practices these organistions undertake to protect and elevate their families and communities to reduce social inequalities and combat this scenario. With this programme, ELAS+ aims to engage the philanthropic ecosystem to support and strengthen the leadership of black women changing institutional racism in Brazil, for current and future generations.
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Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística.
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According to the Atlas of Violence 2021, carried out by the Brazilian Public Security Forum (Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública), it portrays violence in Brazil mainly based on data from the Mortality Information System (SIM – Sistema de Informações sobre Mortalidade) and the Notifiable Diseases Information System (Sinan – Sistema de Informação de Agravos de Notificação) of the Ministry of Health.
Wania Sant’Anna – historian, researcher in the field of gender and ethnic/racial relations, board member of ELAS+ Giving for Change, and a member of the Coalizão Negra por Direitos, representing the terreiro* community of Ilê Omolu and Oxum in Rio de Janeiro. (*sacred space for African religions)
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