RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM AND INSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE AGAINST RAPE VICTIMS IN BOLSONARO’S BRAZIL

Abstract

Sexual violence against women and girls, already endemic under “normal” circumstances, increased significantly in Brazil during the Covid 19 pandemic, without an adequate response from the Federal Government. In August 2020, a 10-year-old girl obtained authorization to have a legal abortion in a state other than her home, however, the evangelical pastor Damares Alves, Minister of the MMFDH and leader of the 'Brasil Sem Aborto' (Brazil Without Abortion) movement for many years, passed on personal information about the girl and the clinic to her religious followers, who shared it on social media. When the girl arrived at the clinic, she was met by a group (including elected members of the local City Council) who called her and the attending physician 'murderers’ and then stormed the clinic in an attempt to stop the intervention. This was one of many cases in which fundamentalist religious morals were at stake against the exercise of women's reproductive rights. In this article, we propose to discuss these issues, focusing on how the fundamentalist religious ideals that guided social (dis)policies in Bolsonaro’s Brazil translated into institutional violence against women and girls, particularly victims of sexual violence.