The latest report on violence in Brazil reveals a grim fact: Afro-Brazilian youths have a significantly higher risk of dying in violent circumstances. While the number of murdered youths among whites has decreased, their proportion among people of color has continued to rise. Murder is the most common cause of death among young people in Brazil.
The latest report on violence in Brazil has been published under the title “Murder and youth in Brazil”. The figures it contains paint a frightening picture of the situation in Brazil: of the 52,198 people who died in violent circumstances in 2011, 18,436 were young people between the ages of 15 and 24. In concrete terms, violent death is the most common cause of death for young people in Brazil – more often than traffic accidents or illness.
Violence is omnipresent
Although young people only make up around 18 percent of the total population, they account for 36 percent of the overall murder rate. 77 percent of the victims are Afro-Brazilian youths. While the number of murders of their white peers has fallen, the number of murdered black youths has risen significantly. Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz from the Centro Brasileira de Estudos Latino Americanos, which is behind the study, names three reasons for the violence: the prevailing culture of violence, impunity and the fact that violence is accepted as normal. In many cases, the prevailing public opinion is that the victims themselves are to blame for their deaths – for example, because women are said to have provoked the violence themselves or men are said to have been involved in drug trafficking.
Countering the banalization of violence
In the north-east of Brazil, the programme region of terre des hommes schweiz,
67% of all youth deaths are caused by violence. The study clearly shows that our project partners there, such as the organization Grupo Comunidade Assumindo Suas Crianças (GCASC), are addressing a key issue in Brazilian society with their strategies for preventing violence and making an urgently needed contribution to breaking the spiral of violence. GCASC mobilizes mothers of murdered adolescents and young people to work together against the banalization of violence.
