Bill 2459/26 creates mechanisms to protect domestic workers from violence in the workplace. The text includes digital tools to request help, specialized police assistance, support services, and harsher penalties for some crimes committed during work in residences.
The measures apply to workers with formal contracts, freelancers, and informal workers.
The bill creates, for example, the Domestic-Work Panic Button, which will allow the worker to discreetly contact authorities in situations of threat, coercion, or deprivation of liberty.
The proposal also creates the Trabalhadora Cidadã app, through which the professional will be able to:
- record digital evidence of the employment relationship;
- calculate salaries and severance payments; and
- locate services from the support network.
The tools will be integrated with the Disque Direitos Humanos (Disque 100) and a new national protocol to guide police action in homes.
The author of the project, Deputy Reimont (PT-RJ), states that the measures aim to combat the institutional invisibility that still marks paid domestic work in Brazil. He adds that the initiative was motivated by the case of worker Samara Regina Dutra, which occurred in Maranhão, which exposed allegations of violence, humiliation, detention of belongings, and deprivation of liberty.
"We want to provide a response that reaches workers in various situations, under various employment contracts, including informal workers," says Reimont. The idea, according to him, is that the new law will give the worker a name.
Assistance to victims
The project also provides for priority assistance to workers who are victims of violence in the Unified Health System (SUS) and the performance of forensic examinations.
Victims will also have access to free legal assistance from the Public Defender's Office and may be included in social programs.
Larger penalties
The project, ultimately, increases the penalties for crimes committed against domestic workers. The text creates a general rule that increases the punishment when there is abuse of the victim's economic or social vulnerability, and increases the penalty for illegal coercion during domestic or residential care work by 50%.
It also provides for a harsher penalty for reducing someone to the condition of a slave, particularly when the victim is pregnant or breastfeeding.
Next steps
The proposal needs to be reviewed by the commissions for Public Security and Organized Crime; for the Defense of Women's Rights; for Labor; for Finance and Taxation; and for Constitution and Justice and Citizenship. It also needs to be approved by the Plenary. To become law, it needs to be approved by both deputies and senators.