Sexual Violence in Marajó

In Marajó, in the state of Pará, 14 of the 16 municipal districts have a low or extremely low Human Development Index. When launching the “Embrace Marajó” program, Brazil’s Minister for Women, the Family and Human Rights, Damares Alves, suggested the construction of an underwear factory in the region as a solution to the problem of the sexual exploitation of children, an issue made worse by a lack of government policy. In the region, girls are sexually exploited from the age of five in exchange for food.

Before the boat reaches the coast of São Sebastião da Boa Vista, the Assembly of God evangelical church is visible, squeezed in between the small houses where the local commercial activity takes place. Once on dry land, lively conversations about the sale of fish and açaí mix with the noise of children running and the many motorcycles that compete for space in the tight passageways with the dogs and those arriving or departing by boat. Although the church was closed, life was going on as normal on the riverbank.
The town of São Sebastião da Boa Vista is known as “The Venice of Marajó”, due to the streams that run across it. The river provides food and sustenance; people live on it; its waters provide relief from the intense heat; and above all, it is the highway, the access route – but only for those with their own boat (and the money for fuel) or who can afford a ticket to Belém, which can cost over R$100, depending on the vessel. From certain rural locations, it can cost up to R$350, while water holes (where the river narrows), where only small boats can pass, mean greater fuel expenses and a much longer travelling time. “The river rules our lives here in Marajó,” Sister Marie Henriqueta Ferreira Cavalcante – the nun at the heart of the fight against the sexual exploitation and violence suffered by children and adolescents in the state of Pará, and coordinator of the CNBB Justice and Peace Commission – said often in the days we spent together in the archipelago.
Fourteen of Marajó’s sixteen municipal districts are to be found on the list of the lowest HDIs in Brazil, according to the country’s Human Development Atlas (based on information from the 1991, 2000 and 2010 censuses). São Sebastião is one of the lowest, along with other districts in the archipelago, such as Afuá, Anajás, Bagre, Breves, Cachoeira do Arari, Chaves, Curralinho, Gurupá, Melgaço, Muaná, Ponta de Pedras, Portel and Santa Cruz do Arari. Only the municipal districts of Salvaterra and Soure, part of the so-called “Marajó 1” region, occupy a median position. Melgaço – which became notorious for reports of the sexual exploitation of girls on cargo ferries – ranks last in Brazil, in 5565th position.
This is the reality of life for the people of Marajó, and the sexual violence against children and adolescents in the region must be considered in this context, Elinay Melo, judge of the 8th Regional Labour Court, told Agência Pública in an interview, making specific reference to the moment when Minister Damares Alves, during the presentation of the “Embrace Marajó” program in July this year, said that girls from the archipelago are raped because they don’t wear underwear. At the same time, Alves proposed the construction of an underwear factory in the region. “The minister's speech has two very serious problems: first, she once again blames the victims, by saying that the problem is with their underwear. This passes responsibility for the violence to the victim, and families who live in conditions of extreme vulnerability, with the complete absence of the State and minimal living conditions. And the other problem is when she says she wants to build an underwear factory. Bring investment to Marajó to build a factory. Again, it’s the wrong way to look at it, because you can't come here once and go back and decide what the people here need. They are the actors, they have to say what they need. These are traditional communities that live in a certain way. I can't go to them with fixed ideas. The underwear factory is a clear example of the colonizer showing up and telling the colonized what they have to do,” says the judge (full interview available here), who in 2017 won an award from the National Justice Council (or CNJ) for ruling that a cargo transport company was responsible for the sexual exploitation of children by truck drivers on one of its vessels, uncovered by a police operation in the region near Breves and Melgaço.
Sister Henriqueta, who was at the scene with the police, remembers the episode sadly: “There’s a serious problem with sexual exploitation in the Breves strait [which has Breves on one side and Melgaço on the other]. Our children get on those boats and lots of them disembark with little things, sometimes a bit of food or a litre of diesel oil, in exchange for having their bodies exploited. I talked a great deal to the two girls who were found on that ferry. The 18-year-old said that she had been sexually exploited in exchange for food since she was five. These days she says she is a 'ferry prostitute' and that her dream is to marry a gaucho to escape from poverty [cargo ferries often cross Brazil, so men from all regions pass through the region]. The 9-year-old girl said she’d been boarding the boat for as long as she could remember, to earn food.”
It was Henriqueta, who knows every inch of Marajó and has been working in the field since 2008, who, together with the Bishop Emeritus of Marajó, Dom Luiz Azcona, raised the issue of the high rate of sexual violence against children and adolescents in the State Legislative Assembly of Pará, resulting in the “Paedophilia in Pará CPI (or Parliamentary Enquiry)”, which began in 2008. Incidentally, the name is incorrect, as there is a clear differentiation between paedophilia – which is a disease established by the World Health Organization (WHO) – and sexual crimes such as abuse, sexual exploitation, rape of the vulnerable and any type of sexual violence against children and adolescents.
After operating for just a year, the CPI made a projection of more than 100,000 cases in Pará; in 20% the victims were children of five or under. The final report, which was published in 2010, also revealed that the aggressors had no specific social profile, listing among them politicians, businessmen, priests, evangelical pastors, teachers, police officers and doctors, and found that in 81% of cases the violence occurred in the family, involving a father, stepfather, uncle, grandfather and other relatives or households. Using more recent data, in the first half of 2019 alone, 1,400 cases of sexual violence were registered in Pará, the majority against youngsters aged under fourteen.
During the investigations, which she accompanied in person, Henriqueta recalls witnessing one of the most shocking moments of her career. “We went to a community meeting on the Tajapuru River, and I went outside and saw a ferry. I called the police and said: ‘Look, the ferry is coming and there are a lot of canoes moored nearby, there are bound to be lot of children inside'. And we saw the children. When they saw the police boat, they left in a hurry, but one child came up to us. There was a woman who was fishing and had some fish in her canoe. The child said: ‘Miss, have you been fishing?’ And the woman replied: 'Yes, I caught these'. Then the child looked to see what she was using as bait. She said: ‘Are you going to fish anymore?’, and the woman said: ‘I don’t think so, I’m stopping now’. ‘Can you give me the rest of this mortadella to eat with my brothers then? Because my mother hasn't been able to get food for two days’. That shocked me. It was then that I understood more deeply that at the root of all this is poverty. It's hunger.”
There are still no up to date official data on the exploitation of or sexual violence against children and adolescents specific to Marajó, according to the Pará Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has carried out a survey which will be made public in the coming months. There are many difficulties – from how to access communities to silence, which results in underreporting, due to a serious distrust of government agencies, and the ineffectiveness of the system when confronting and protecting victims of sexual exploitation.
São Sebastião da Boa Vista, for example, a town with a population of over 21,500 inhabitants, hasn’t had a senior police officer for over a year. Neither the police nor the Child Protection Authority have a boat. There is no public defender, the Specialized Reference Center for Social Care (or Creas) and the Reference Center for Social Care (or CRAS) barely function, and some employees end up taking on multiple roles, such as prosecutor Patrícia Carvalho Medrado. Since 2017, she has been working in São Sebastião with a team of two others, dealing with accusations of crimes that should have been made at the police station, working cases, and undertaking awareness campaigns on sexual violence in dozens of rural communities, as well as inspecting schools and organizing public hearings. The Child Protection Authority has only four people, working in shifts, to serve the town and the rural regions. “And the situation here in São Sebastião is good compared to other places in Marajó. There are places that don’t have an internet server, where the internet is much worse, where they don’t have a police officer, where there’s no Public Defender… The situation here is very difficult and yet it isn’t even one of the worst in the region,” she says.
A cycle of violence
The waiting room of the São Sebastião Courthouse was crowded on this sultry Tuesday, with all the chairs occupied, people on foot and waiting to be seen outside. Men, women, children and babies. Among the cases to be heard that afternoon, there were two cases of sexual violence against girls, one in which the father was the aggressor, and the other the stepfather, who had been arrested and was waiting in another room. The victims were also waiting for the hearing.
One of the stories, of two sisters who I’ll call Mariana and Luíza, was particularly upsetting, not only because of the cyclical violence involved, but also as a portrait of the difficulties victims face within the safety net. Mariana was first raped by her father when she was seven. Her mother knew, but did not report her partner out of fear. At 12, the girl became pregnant and had her first child. A year later, she became pregnant by her father again. Neither of the pregnancies, which occurred when she was 12 and 13, became known to the Child Protection Authority, as should have been the case. The second time, the girl suffered complications during childbirth and had to stay in the town for a time (her family was from a remote and difficult to reach area), when she tried to run away with a boy. Her father found out, took her two children and left, forbidding Mariana to see them. The father then began to sexually abuse his youngest daughter, Luiza, at the time aged seven. At 11, she also became pregnant. Knowing he was under suspicion, the father took his daughter to give birth in another district, presenting false documents. The doctors became suspicious and informed the Child Protection Authority. He fled with the girl to a third town, where it was found that her unborn baby had died. Again the Child Protection Authority was informed, and this time managed to reach the girl. “She underwent surgery and we went to get her. The trip was exhausting. I had to lie down on the boat and put her on top of me to soften the impacts and avoid injuring her, as she had suffered complications during surgery,” said child protection counsellor Paula Rodrigues. To get to the family home, from the riverside, involves two and a half hours trekking through the forest. Once there, protection authority officials noticed the two younger children and asked whose they were. The father said they were one of his daughter’s, who had run away. From this investigation, the case of the two girls was uncovered.
“We accused the father of the rape of a minor and brought the two children to live with their biological mother,” said Patrícia, the prosecutor. “The father escaped. That’s where the whole failure of the justice system lies. It took so long to analyze the request for an arrest warrant. When they got the warrant, the police didn’t have a speedboat to get there. When they got there, they couldn’t find him. So they came back. We’ve heard he’s gone back home and the girl is pregnant again,” laments Patrícia.
She also describes the failings of the protection services, which were repeated in the case of Daniela*, who today is 15 and lives in the home of the family who adopted her when, aged 11, she became pregnant by her father and was kicked out of her home by her mother. Small and shy, when we visited her she remained silent most of the time, but became more animated when Julia, the photographer, asked about her necklace. "It's BTS, they’re Korean, they played in São Paulo!" It was the most she said all day. When Sister Henriqueta appeared, she became visibly emotional, her eyes watered and she said she didn’t remember her. But then she did "remember". The sister had helped rescue her and accompanied her adoption process. The baby, who is now brought up as her sister, never leaves her adoptive mother's lap. Princess dresses and dolls are scattered all over the house. Prosecutor Patrícia says that Daniela went through a period of depression, in which she talked about taking her own life, wouldn’t accept her daughter and, according to CRAS, refused psychological care. “Then I called the adoptive family and talked to them. I found out that the psychologist was telling the girl that her adoptive mother wasn’t her real mother, and that she had to look for her birth mother. Her mother who took the side of the aggressor, even with a DNA test in her hand, and who still pays for his lawyer today. Obviously she didn't want to look for her mother. It’s a complete failure, I had to request an order so that she had proper, continuous psychological care guaranteed. Those working in the profession aren’t ready for the role and, because of the high turnover of employees, there is never enough time to train them.”
Cases such as those of Mariana, Luíza and Daniela, involving family members, make up the majority in São Sebastião. In 2019, eleven cases were registered, while the Protection Authority officials refer to eighteen. Patrícia says that the number of reports of abuse has increased, but that does not mean an increase in the number of cases: “Most of these are coming, for the first time, from rural areas, and become cases. This is down to the awareness talks we’ve given in rural areas. Before these, the reports practically never made it this far.”
Upon leaving the Court, the prosecutor asks: “Do you want to see the city dump? We just have to cross the street.” The dump is over a block of uncovered trash, swarming with vultures and dogs, who, when they’re done, go and play with the children in the town center.

The bravery of the girls and the condemned school
The community of Nossa Senhora de Nazaré, part of the rural hinterland of São Sebastião da Boa Vista, was already waiting, snacks at the ready, when our boat reached the river bank. The day was to be dedicated to the conference entitled “Dialogues between the MPPA and the System of Guaranteeing the Rights of the Child and the Adolescent in the Fight against Sexual Violence in the Archipelago of Marajó,” a series of meetings that has been taking place around Marajó. Children and teenagers, who paid close attention, with some taking notes, made up the majority of the audience. In addition to lectures by the prosecutor Patrícia and Sister Henriqueta on what constitutes sexual abuse, how to identify it and who to report it to, there was a lecture by the Navy on the importance of protecting the engines of boats to avoid scalping, an inspection of the school and local health centre, and also a public meeting.

An inspection at the Justiniano Barreto Municipal Elementary School, which currently has more than 60 children, found there was no water in the kitchen or in the bathroom toilets, the classrooms had no electricity or fans, the walls were full of termites, and the computers were piled up for repair. The nursery was just an abandoned building. The health center hadn’t had a doctor in years.

It was the first time that the government, through the Public Prosecutor’s Office, had visited the region, and at the public hearing everyone wanted to speak. Most complaints were about pirate attacks on boats and drug trafficking, and also about the difficulty in reaching the police. It was then that some teenagers, encouraged by Sister Henriqueta, stood up and asked to speak. They wanted the delegation to inspect their school, which also had no electricity or fans. They said that it flooded when it rained and was boiling hot when it was sunny, and that there were no snacks for the children because the groceries were stolen before dawn.
We called the girls over to talk and listened to what they had to say about the theme of the event, and whether they were aware of the minister's speech about the lack of underwear. They hadn’t, and couldn’t believe anyone would say such a thing. A group of five girls aged between 13 and 16 said: “We know about girls from our school who were abused by relatives and became pregnant, and we also know of girls who go out with older men for money, but it has nothing to do with not wearing underwear! How could anyone say that?” When I asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, they said "police chief", "lawyer", "boxer" and "judge". Only one wanted to be a dancer. Why choose these jobs? "To protect our community." However, when I asked if they knew who they could turn to if they suffered any kind of violence, the answer was a unanimous no.
On the way back to town, the prosecutor agreed to the girls' request and stopped the boat to inspect the Josiel Ferreira Santana school, which serves 190 children, from pre-school to the 9th grade. The situation was even more serious than they’d said: the lack of electricity or fans in the rooms meant they only had two hours of classes per day, because no one could bear the heat after 9 am. There were no snacks for the children and there were bats, snakes and cockroaches, as well as animal faeces in the pantry where the food was kept. Leaking walls, termite trails, desks falling apart. The guard at the school said that he took the snacks with him at night and brought them in in the morning so that no one could steal them (that is, when they arrived) and that they had already asked for improvements many times, but that they were never carried out. He said there were children who came from remote locations, two hours away by boat – like the girl who wanted to be a dancer. The school was to be shut down.
Not a sign
None of those interviewed for this story, from the community to activists, prosecutors, police or judges, knew anything about the program for Marajó proposed by the ministry of Damares Alves. No one, even those who were experts in their areas, had been consulted, or knew anyone who had. The exception was Bishop Dom Luiz, but, according to Sister Henriqueta, he had only been invited to accompany the minister on her first visit, not as part of the “Embrace Marajó” program.
“There is a lack of government policy in all areas, but especially childhood. People don’t see children as their future. ‘We are going to invest in education, we are going to invest in health, we are going to invest in these children so that we can escape from this poverty.’ There’s no interest, politically, and certainly a lack of underwear isn’t on the list of the needs of girls and boys here in Marajó. They are children who suffer. They are children who have no opportunities in life. Many of them often go to school to eat, but when they get there there’s no food, or when there is, it is poor quality,” said prosecutor Patrícia. "Did anything reach here, or was there any news of the "Embrace Marajó" program for you?” she asked the Child Protection Authority officials. "Not a thing. We've never even heard of it,” came the reply. "And you, Sister Henriqueta, who has been working all over Marajó, for more than ten years?" “I’m not aware of any activist in the region who was invited to talk to them. But I’m not going to stand here and say what the population needs. My role, as part of civil society, is to raise awareness. ‘Children, are you studying? Is your snack getting here?’ ‘No, it isn’t.’ ‘So you need to tell someone, claim what you’re entitled to,’ like we did in that community.” Then she adds: “A month ago, in another region, another municipal district here in Portel, we had a case where a woman reported the sale of children. Six children were sold for a food basket. And this government brings more and more despair. Committees and initiatives are being shut down. I am extremely worried, because a project like that doesn’t start overnight, without a solid foundation, without the participation of the local population. There needs to be a dialogue. Some people say there are political interests involved in the Ministry coming here, both because Bolsonaro lost the election in Marajó and because of internationalization. That's what I hear out there. This speech by the minister caused a lot of anger, especially for us, who fight for our children, and for the communities here in the region. Not only in the region, in fact, it caused revulsion in many parts of the world.”
The final word comes from prosecutor Patrícia: “Embracing Marajó means strengthening the police, increasing the number of officers, putting squads in places where we know trafficking is being organized. It means good quality internet. Strengthening the protection network. In the remote parts of Marajó, there are children who look like skeletons living in houses with no walls. People are bitten by bats and many die of rabies. Marajó needs investment in its people. Not an underwear factory”.