To conclude the special election series,Brazil de Fato MGexplores the candidates' proposals for Minas Gerais' women. According to the 2026 Brazilian Public Safety Annual, Minas Gerais accounts for 11.3% of all femicide victims in the country, ranking second nationally in absolute numbers.
"Unfortunately, our state is one of the most violent in the country, it's a frightening reality. It's violent to be a Minas Gerais woman right now, and it's very hard for us to recognize and accept that," comments Bruna Camilo, a social sciences doctor from PUC Minas and a researcher on gender, misogyny, and public policies.
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Brazil de Fato MG - What needs to be present when we think about a policy aimed at women in our state? What are the main bottlenecks and demands on this topic in Minas Gerais? Here, we consider not only the multiplicity of demands that involve the experience of Minas Gerais women, but also the inequalities present in a state of our size.
Bruna Camilo -The first thing we need to recognize is that there is no single experience of being a woman in Minas Gerais. We are talking about a state with 853 municipalities and enormous territorial inequalities. For example, a woman living in Belo Horizonte may not face the same obstacles as a woman from the Jequitinhonha Valley, Northern Minas, the Triangulo Mineiro, or Southern Minas. Each Minas Gerais woman has her own peculiarities, which is already a huge challenge.
There is a second layer, which is inequality. Women are not in the same social position, we have black women, poor women, quilombola women, women in rural areas, indigenous women, women with disabilities, transgender women, and single mothers. Each one faces their specific barriers.
So, when I think about a state policy for women, what do we need to focus on? For example, in a dynamic reading of a candidate's project, what does it need to have minimally? I would say five major dimensions:
First, violence: unfortunately, our state is one of the most violent in the country, it's a terrifying reality, it's difficult to recognize and accept that being a woman in Minas Gerais today is violent. Minas needs a capable network, not just to attend to women after the aggression, but to identify risk situations and prevent them from escalating to a more severe form. Prevention and education are necessary because the point of violence is a very critical issue in our state.
Another crucial point, for many women (I would say all), is that it's more possible to leave a situation of violence when you have economic autonomy. We know that one of the violences women suffer is patrimonial violence, that is, when their belongings are confiscated or they are prohibited from working. It's no use telling a woman to break off a violent relationship if she doesn't have an income, if she doesn't have a job, if she doesn't have housing, if she doesn't have credit available for her children, or any other support network. Economic autonomy is also a prevention policy against violence.
A third point would be integral health. As an advisor to the Ministry of Health, we can see firsthand our concern for women's health. Of course, men's health, and other groups' health, is just as important, but women's health is fundamental for our society. We are the majority in the country, we are the ones who develop the care economy, we are a major structure in society.
We are talking about all women here, not just, for example, pregnant women. There is a lot of focus on pregnant women due to prenatal care, but it's all women, including transgender women. It's necessary to think about the health of LBT women (lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender). Pregnant women, on the other hand, have all the delicacy of that pregnancy moment and childbirth, for example, to avoid obstetrical violence.
Just as women in all regions of Minas Gerais, women at various stages of their lives also have their specificities: we need to talk about sexual and reproductive health, prenatal care, postpartum period, menopause, endometriosis (which has been gaining more force in discussions at the Ministry of Health to put it at the forefront of primary care), mental health. In addition, attending to violence victims in health spaces, because yes, one of the entry points to welcome a woman in a situation of violence is the health post. So, health is literally integral.
The other important point is care policy. It's that question: who takes care of children, the elderly, people with disabilities, sick family members? It's the women, and today this work disproportionately falls on women's shoulders. The National Care Policy was approved in 2024, but how do we put it into practice? How do we ensure that this, at the national level, reaches the states? How are these candidates dealing with the National Care Policy? Are they thinking about care?
It is important for us to say that the most prominent candidates are men. Are these men understanding that care is also about the sexual division of labor, that men also have to take responsibility for care? I don't know, I don't see anything explicit in this from all the candidates for the government of Minas Gerais. So, it is an important point for us to make.
The fifth dimension is education and cultural transformation. You can't not talk about culture, it is a right. Education is also a right. We can expand the police station, shelter house, protective measure, but if we don't confront the culture that naturalizes the control of women's bodies, we will continue in this cycle of violence. Culture acts as a tool for women's emancipation and provides various tools to actually break this patriarchal logic of violence against women.
I would say the main challenge for Minas is to build a policy that does not only see women as victims. We can't reduce women to this, to being protected, poor, helpless, she is an unpunishable woman, she is a person without her own will. No, she is not just a victim. She is a subject of right. She needs economic autonomy, health, work, she needs to be cared for, but she needs to have a life free of violence. If we could put together an ideal program, it would have to have at least these five pillars.
According to the 2026 Brazilian Public Security Annual, Minas Gerais concentrates 11.3% of all femicide victims in the country, ranking second nationally in absolute numbers. The survey also shows a rise in other forms of violence. Psychological violence was the modality that increased the most in Minas Gerais, with a 32.5% rise. The state recorded 85,993 victims of threats and 6,533 cases of stalking, a 22.2% increase from the previous year. How should this problem be addressed? Do candidates recognize this problem? And additionally, do you see effective measures proposed in the government plans?
I am going to talk about some proposals, some candidates, that I find important, but before all, I wanted to talk about the current government of Minas Gerais. I speak with certainty, the confrontation or not of violence against women is a political decision. Similarly, the increase in violence against women in the state of Minas Gerais was a political decision.
When investment is reduced in confronting violence against women and women's autonomy, when women are reduced to mere victims and their autonomy is not sought, their integral health, this is a political choice. We have to be fully aware of this. What was done in recent years in Minas Gerais was the confrontation with women. Women's lives were confronted, women's lives were reduced.
Now, talking about the candidates, we need to make a distinction: recognizing that femicide exists is one thing; building a policy to prevent femicide is another. Because all candidates recognize this. After all, the data shows, so there's no way to deny that femicide is happening.
When I look at the government plans, I find different ways to understand this problem, that's the key. Some candidacies concentrate the response, mainly, on public security, which I am already against. Violence against women will not be resolved just with a public security solution. If it were, we wouldn't be discussing the approval of a PL (Law Project) against misogyny. We wouldn't need a law against femicide. We would have already stopped at the Maria da Penha Law, which would have taken care of everything. And it is an extremely advanced law that we need to continue improving and valuing.
If we always focus on punishment and see it as a public security issue, it won't resolve the issue. For instance, Cleitinho proposes expanding specialized delegacies, strengthening Maria da Penha patrols, and increasing electronic monitoring of aggressors with ankle monitors. Does this actually resolve violence against women? No, it doesn't. Because you're only focusing on punishment and monitoring.
You're not dismantling the patriarchal logic of the structure, nor are you reeducating or deradicalizing that man, who still believes he has the right to aggress that woman. Because in his mind, he's doing justice, as that woman, for some reason, disobeyed him or doesn't want to be with him. In his head, she is indeed a property. Neither the ankle monitor nor specialized delegacies will solve everything. Of course, we need the delegacies, we want the ankle monitors, but the issue isn't that; thinking that these points alone will resolve the problem is not the way forward. Cleitinho takes everything to the end, focusing on public security.
Flávio Roscoe, on the other hand, also strongly advocates for risk management, meaning we only resolve the issue at the end, when someone is killed. When someone is killed, it's the tip of the iceberg; we don't want to lose more women. His plan proposes a mandatory reassessment every 15 days of cases involving active protective measures, especially those at extreme risk. He collaborates with maternal health and early childhood, but always from the perspective of a victimized woman.
There's no consideration for the root of the problem, the aggressive male. There's no recognition that our boys today agree, as research indicates, that women should be submissive to men. This aspect is not being looked at.
Mateus Simões acknowledges the persistence of domestic violence and femicide. He continues to focus on protection, but in the context of public security. Once again, public security is presented as the ultimate solution for addressing violence against women, but it's not. We've been doing the same thing for years, and we're now beginning to understand that it's not enough; we need to hold men socially responsible, not just through public security measures.
In contrast, these men, particularly from the right and extreme right, want to strengthen this scenario of panic. Women are dying, so let's arrest, punish, and resolve it by filling up prisons. In every country where the prison system is overcrowded, nothing has been resolved. We need to consider a different path.
There are proposals that go beyond security, and it's important to mention that I'm presenting the analysis of a sociologist who doesn't necessarily advocate for voting for X or Y, but we need to recognize candidates who, in fact, think beyond the box of public security.
For example, Alexandre Kalil proposes an integrated network involving military police, civil police, but also social assistance, health, and justice. This is very interesting to consider. Creating these protection and service flows, and strengthening the state's response capacity. This already exists; we have protection networks. I was the superintendent of the Women of the Gerais Consortium, a consortium that brings together 12 municipalities in Minas Gerais that creates this network, but it needs strengthening. So, Kalil doesn't bring anything new, but he thinks outside the box of public security, connecting women's economic autonomy with their social autonomy.
Gabriel Azevedo speaks on what he calls a 'state network of rebirth', which also integrates security, housing, qualification, and work. This goes beyond the whole public security issue, it's important to recognize. Now, regardless of who wins or not, accountability is necessary, because a proposal or document can be accepted. But do they actually think this? That's a different step.
Within this program, Gabriel Azevedo discusses temporary aid, remote 24/7 support, housing priority, already existing in 'Minha Casa Minha Vida', where homes are in the women's names. It's important to note that, so far, these men thinking outside the box of public security, there's nothing new. Nothing is unprecedented, but we do need to put this into practice.
Patrus Ananias presents a highly integrated policy. He articulates the fight against violence, financial autonomy, women's qualification, which is fantastic, productive inclusion, and care. Caring for women not only as victims of violence but caring for women in every way, especially regarding their autonomy.
There's a proposal, brought by Patrus' program, which I consider particularly important: attention to orphaned children of feminicide. Unfortunately, many women are dying, leaving many children orphaned. To whom do we give these children? What's their mental health status? Because many of them witness the violence their mothers suffered. How do we care for boys and girls exposed to this violence? Because girls exposed to this violence tend to reproduce it or become submissive or display violent behaviors. And boys, predominantly, display violent behaviors. So, how do we prevent these boys and girls from reproducing all these violences?
We have Indira Xavier presenting an agenda that includes specialized delegacies, expanding the network of confrontation, income transfer, social rent. All of this exists, but it's important that there be candidates who recognize there are other ways beyond public security. Because it's easy to fall into the punishment logic. Well, do you want aggressors to remain free and unpunished? No, they need to be punished. But we need to go beyond that, because when they get out of prison, the first thing they do is kill the woman, as they feel resentful for being locked up.
Rafael Duda and Túlio Lopes work on this violence in a more structural way. They associate prevention, education, public services, and protection. So, this last block I mentioned are candidates who think outside the logic of Bolsonaro and the far right.
Some of those I've mentioned so far might be from the right, but they try to think about women from a different logic, which is important to say. Answering generally to the question about effective measures, we need to think of a government plan that presents these proposals beyond public security. Otherwise, it won't be effective, and Minas Gerais will continue to be an enemy to women.
It's a very general overview of what each candidate and candidate points out. But a fundamental point is: feminicide doesn't start with feminicide. If you think about public security, you're thinking that feminicide is the starting point, but it's not. We need to think further back. Boys who are being radicalized through communication, boys who don't understand literacy about consent, digital literacy, and the lack of literacy in girls about consent.
So, if we invest in prevention and education, the logic of feminicide as a starting point will certainly begin to change. A good public policy starts with the before, not at the time of reducing this damage of feminicide that ends up affecting society as a whole.
We are also disproportionately excluded from access to employment and income. Why is this the case? Are there concrete proposals presented by the candidates to address this issue?
This happens because of the sexual division of labor, which structures our society. What does this mean: Historically, domestic work and care have been assigned to women. Probably, all or most of the people listening to us, only ended up where they are because a woman took care of them. We go to work, and certainly other women got up earlier than us to make the city move.
The woman enters the labor market, but often continues to be responsible for this unpaid work, which is care. The care economy is what actually makes capitalism turn. If the care economy, as it is, is not remunerated, devalued, and invisible, capitalism would not be as strong. In other words, there is an exploitation of women.
And motherhood still produces these consequences in different ways between men and women. Motherhood will fall on women. "Oh, Bruna, but only a woman breastfeeds, in most cases," but it's not just about breastfeeding, it's about caring for the child, it's about whether the man will leave work early to take the child to the doctor. This is very difficult to see and it's about the sexual division of labor.
A woman with children may reduce her work schedule, interrupt her career, or refuse an opportunity because she will think about the child, she is educated to reproduce that care. Men rarely do this and are rarely penalized professionally, because they are seen as the cool guy. Look how great it is for a man to take his child out. It's very different. He's not doing anything more than his obligation, but he's seen as a great hero, while women are completely exploited and society sees it as if it were not more than their obligation to be exploited by care.
So, when we talk about wage gap, it's not just about the salary, it's the whole structure that determines who has time, who can work, who can study, who can be promoted. And this appears in government plans in very different ways.
Alexandre Khalil positions women's economic autonomy as part of the very policy of protection. This is very interesting. The plan speaks of professional qualification, qualification of work itself, entrepreneurship, solidary economy - which is a very important point that we have been developing - productive inclusion and support for women in situations of violence. As we said, one of the ways for women to get out of this cycle of violence is through autonomy.
Patrus Ananias proposes to strengthen the 'A Vez Delas' (Her Turn) program, which coordinates services for women, professional qualification, employment banks, and labor and income policies. It's very good to think outside the box; there can be no confrontation with violence against women without this coordination. It's important to see that there are candidates who are indeed articulating all these points.
Gabriel Azevedo directly connects violence with economic autonomy, as I mentioned before, through a state network of rebirth, he proposes qualification and work alongside housing, health, and assistance.
Flávio Roscoe works with female entrepreneurship, credit, and empowerment. I would like to draw attention to female entrepreneurship and credit, because many women are entrepreneurs, many take bank loans to start their businesses, but this can also lead to debt.
Many female entrepreneurs are in debt, why? They invest in their ventures, borrow money, but they are also part of the sexual division of labor and sometimes don't have time to actually move their businesses forward. Debt is also a risk factor when discussing entrepreneurship.
Moreover, the concept of entrepreneurship is very neoliberal, as it is presented in society. I find it very complicated to offer credit without considering interest rates or the obstacles in women's lives. This is a critical point that we must consider; giving credit is not enough; we need to provide conditions for women to benefit from it.
Cleitinho also connects the protection network, qualification, and reservation of employment vacancies. But it's also quite abstract; there's nothing well-defined. Job reservation, okay, but what happens next? Qualification, but how does that happen? Since it's closely linked to public security, it seems difficult to envision another form of women's autonomy, as this logic presents them all as victims without autonomy.
Indira Xavier presents a broader proposal for job creation and income generation for vulnerable women. She also makes specific cuts for women, which is very interesting, considering how this could be applied to black, quilombola, indigenous, and disabled women. It's important to consider this, as under the umbrella of 'woman' there are many different women.
So how does this issue of employment, income, and financial autonomy affect women? Thinking generally about these candidates, I believe there is a very important point here. Economic autonomy is not simply putting women in the labor market.
It doesn't matter who gets the credit. What's the condition? It's not about putting women in debt. Many women are in debt due to "bets" because they are the family's providers and can't manage to bring money home. They are likely in debt with the bank. Finance is very delicate. It's not just about saying: take charge of your business. It's much more complex than that.
And we need to talk about creches, transportation (with zero fare), working hours, and care division. For women, we must consider a much more complex network: we need to discuss full-time creches, the valorization of these teachers, zero fare, shared care responsibility, which is not just about the labor market, as women are the first to leave early to care for others.
What is a care policy, in practice? Does it appear in state government plans?
A care policy is essentially recognizing that caring is work, and that this work requires shared responsibility between the state, families, communities, and primarily men, who historically have not taken responsibility for general caring. Of course, we can't generalize 100%, but most men do not take responsibility for care, and when they do the minimum, they are seen as great heroes, as we have mentioned here before.
Today, when a child needs care, when an elderly person or an older person becomes ill, or when someone with a disability needs help, it is usually a family member who provides care, and in most cases, it is women. This creates a huge inequality, as women stop working, reduce their hours, abandon their studies, and neglect their rest.
For example, the end of the 6-for-1 shift is primarily about women's rest. So, it's a very complex issue when we talk about a care policy. A care policy means building a public network capable of sharing all this responsibility. This involves creches, services for the elderly, support for people with disabilities, support for caring families, and SUS caregivers when they visit homes. Home services, public equipment, coordination with health, assistance, education, housing, and work. A care policy brings all this network together.
Community laundries, which are also a space for women's organization and raise questions about why only they should be there, are part of the care policy. This also appears in different ways within the plans.
TheAlexandre KalilFor example, the text presented explicitly proposes a state policy on care. This is quite interesting as it is articulated with social assistance, health, labor, education, housing, and economic development. The proposal seems to acknowledge that care disproportionately falls on women and foresees territorial networks for children, the elderly, people with disabilities, and those dependent on such care.
The text: "O 17º Festival Internacional de Cinema de São Paulo, um dos mais importantes eventos culturais do país, começa hoje e promete trazer uma programação diversificada e de alta qualidade."Patrus AnaniasIt also approaches care as a public policy. Which is important because it names, holds accountable, and puts on the table: look, this also affects women's lives, this also generates some kind of overload, this is also work. It proposes a State Council for Care Policy, focused on services for the elderly and vulnerable populations who need care, and thus, it is actually possible to organize this policy within the state. This plan also articulates with daycares and policies for single mothers, who are also very invisibilized.
The text: "O [newspaper name] relata que, segundo fontes oficiais, o governo está planejando implementar novas medidas de segurança em áreas urbanas."Gabriel AzevedoIt also works on the protection of caregiver families and articulates assistance, health, and education, but it is not very detailed about how this would be. For example, it talks about policy, it talks about a council, it talks about something that will be done, but we don't really understand how it will be implemented.
The text: "O [newspaper name] relata que, de acordo com fontes oficiais, um incidente grave ocorreu na região metropolitana de [city name], causando danos significativos à infraestrutura local."Text: Rafael DudaHe presented a very concrete proposal in this regard. He talks about public laundries, which is an important thing to rescue. And the expansion of public restaurants. Patrus Ananias, back there, decades ago, brought the popular restaurant to Belo Horizonte, it's important to expand it. He speaks about reducing domestic work in women's lives, thinking about this shared responsibility.
In this regard, when we talk about care, it's not just to say: "Ah, this affects women's lives and that's it, done." No, we need to discuss, we need to delve deeper. Really address the issue, give a name to what is happening.
Text: Tulio LopesIt presents a care policy that advocates for the universalization of public daycares, including nighttime care. Many women work at night, so what do they do? And what about women in rural areas? What kind of care are they receiving? This needs to be questioned, it's important when such projects emerge.
The text provided is incomplete, so here is the translation based on what was given: "The article:"Indira XavierThe creche is directly linked to women's insertion in the labor market. This makes perfect sense, because if a woman has peace of mind knowing that her child is in a safe place and that she can work until the end of her shift and pick up the child at the necessary time, it is extremely important.
(No text provided)Flávio RoscoeIt primarily focuses on creche expansion and early childhood, but it does not present a state care policy plan, as Kalil and Patrus do.
In my opinion, I believe Patrus and Kalil are much more focused on the care issue. It's important to pay attention to this: there is no female autonomy without the socialization of work. I learned this at the World Women's March and learn a lot from working women; there's no way to talk about care without talking about the shared responsibility of society for that care.
We have witnessed an alarming growth in a culture of hatred towards women, which is one of the central themes of your research. Education is the way to combat this misogynistic culture, and how? How is the gender perspective presented in the education debate proposed by the candidates?
It may seem cliché, but I truly believe that education is fundamental. However, I would say that it is not enough on its own. Education cannot solve everything. Misogyny is not simply because people have not received information; it is produced in social relations and institutions.
For example, what good is having a women's reception delegation if the workers there do not have training and understanding that those women are victims? It's not about revictimization or questioning; it's about providing support. So, institutions also reproduce this violence.
Misogyny is also present in the family institution and the media, especially in the dominant communication that reaches people in remote areas of our country. Misogyny is also found in these spaces: in novels that reproduce violence, on social media, in messaging groups, Telegram, WhatsApp, and YouTube. The media can indeed reproduce all this violence, and unfortunately, we notice that it is becoming stronger.
We need education, but also accountability, prevention policies, victim protection, and institution transformation. If we cannot, in fact, shake and crack this patriarchal structure in our society, there will be no public policy and education in the world that can combat all this.
Indeed, we are also in the hands of legal operators and public policy, so a whole deconstruction network is needed: public policy, education, and those who operate it. The big challenge is to make this articulation happen. For example, in school, it means teaching boys and girls to recognize violent relationships, discuss consent, respect, and equality of rights.
Each institution, each place, must develop its own deconstruction method. There is one fundamental thing: we cannot only teach girls to protect themselves; we need to teach boys not to be violent. We, women, have been talking for centuries about how not to be violated. Where are the men and boys talking about not being violent? This is also lacking.
When we look at the plans, we find different degrees of presence of this perspective. Cleitinho talks a lot about educational action in elementary and high school, in public and private schools, aimed at preventing violence against women. But how would this program be? What guarantees that the policy implemented in schools will not reproduce more violence? Are teachers being valued in their salaries and careers to absorb and understand the importance of talking about this prevention? It needs to be more detailed.
Flávio Roscoe also talks about prevention through the education of boys. However, he doesn't explain how this education for boys would work, as he constantly focuses on the concentration of combating violence from public security. How is this education passing through public security? Where does school combine with prison? How is this, since you talked so much about public security and said nothing about education for boys? It's a bit confusing. Indeed, there are candidates who don't know what they're talking about and put things there to try to stand out in some way.
Rafael Duda talks about sexual education and educational actions against machismo. This is very important. Relating the formation of prevention against rape, prevention against femicide, prevention against aggression. Thinking of education as a form of prevention is important, but it is even more important to detail how this would be, we need a work plan. How will it be in practice? Will there be money? There needs to be investment, there must be money to get this wheel rolling.
Indira Xavier talks about educational actions. How will we act against violence and in favor of equality? It is important to be in this active place, proposing. Being passive, waiting, and hoping for a femicide to happen is useless.
Kalil works with an educational perspective regarding differences and fighting discrimination. And Patrus Ananias also follows this logic of respecting each individual from their differences and thinking about combating discrimination. We cannot talk about fighting misogyny without understanding each territory, and Patrus Ananias also clearly outlines this, which is very important.
If an adolescent learns in school, in institutions, in daily life that women and men have equal rights, but at the same time they spend hours and hours on the internet without digital literacy, with their families not understanding what they are seeing online and the novel they consume is extremely violent, it won't be enough.
We need everyone to talk. What are the big techs, the large internet companies? What is the responsibility of the State of Minas Gerais regarding what content dissemination companies are doing in our territories? Strong articulation is necessary. I see very little discussion about digital literacy in all the programs. The discussion about big companies, big techs, is something that should be deeper in all programs.
Finally, I wanted, indeed, a definitive answer to fighting misogyny, but we still haven't found it, and we hope that the person elected as Governor or Governor of the State of Minas Gerais truly cares, because so far, keeping women alive, healthy, and safe has not been a central concern.