In 2022, a sad record was broken in Brazil: an average of more than eight rapes per hour were committed, the vast majority of them minors.
According to a report released Thursday by an NGO, Brazil saw an average of more than eight rapes per hour in 2022, a record including 61.4% against children under 14.
The Brazilian Forum for Public Safety counted 74,930 rapes last year, an increase of 8.2% compared to 2021. More than one in ten rapes (10.4%) were the victims under the age of four.
This data was compiled from official documents, including police files.
7 out of 10 rapes in the victims’ homes
More than two thirds of the rapes (68.3%) were committed in the victims’ homes. And the vast majority of victims aged 0 to 13 were raped by people they knew (86.1%) or family members (64.4%).
Among victims aged 14 and over, nearly a quarter (24.3%) of rapes were committed by an ex-partner or someone with whom they were in a relationship at the time of the rape.
“During the Covid-19 pandemic, schools remained closed for long periods and victims were locked up with their attackers. As schools reopened, the number of denunciations increased,” Juliana Martins, the forum’s institutional coordinator, told AFP.
“A large number of rapes are not the subject of complaints, so it’s entirely possible that the situation is even worse than the data indicates,” she notes in the annual report.
The expert emphasizes “the fundamental role of schools in condemning the rape of minors”.
The NGO report also identified 1,437 femicides, a 6.1% increase over the previous year, and 245,713 cases of domestic violence (+2.9%).
The total number of homicides, on the other hand, fell slightly (-2.4%) and totaled 47,508.
That number has been steadily declining since a record 64,078 homicides in 2017.