BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

quota system in politics determined a minimum rate of 20% of women in all the parties’ candidatures. It rose to 30% in 1997, due to the federal law 9.504. 49 Brazil adopted an international declaration to enforce affirmative action measures to set quota system, legal measures, and tax credits, all to reduce gender inequality, during the Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing, in 1995. 50 Brazil prohibited requiring pregnancy certificates, sterilisation exams, and other discriminatory acts when hiring or maintaining women in their jobs also in 1995, by the law 9.029/95. 51 There are no major advances in women insertion in labour market, even though there is special protection, through specific incentive actions, in the 1988 Constitution. 52 That is so because Brazilian government does not consider gender issues to create and implement public policies. 53 An extremely important advance to protect Brazilian women is the “Maria da Penha Law”, containing severe punishment and prohibition to assault, sexual abuse or psychological violence against women in any intimate relationship. Its promulgation was in 2006, eleven years after the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women and the United Nation’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), exactly to promote their policies in Brazil. 54 At the mid 1980s the Brazilian states created their Women Police Departments, to deal with issues affecting women and provide them proper attention regarding sexual assault and domestic violence. 55 The police departments spread over the country after the “Maria da Penha Law” and nowadays they are in every Brazilian city, to accomplish the punishment to violence against women. 49 BRASIL. Lei 9.100, de 29 de setembro de 1995 . Available at:: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/ L9100.htm. 50 DIAS, Maria Berenice. Ações Afirmativas: uma solução para a desigualdade. Revista Del Rey , nº 04, dez/98, p. 24. 51 CAVALCANTI, S. V. Igualdade, Discriminação Positiva e Políticas Públicas para Mulheres no Brasil. Revista do Mestrado em Direito da Universidade Federal de Alagoas , ano 2, n. 2, 1º Semestre, 2006, p. 368. 52 Article 7. The following are rights of urban and rural workers, among others that aim to improve their social conditions: (CA No. 20, 1998; CA No. 28, 2000; CA No. 53, 2006; CA No. 72, 2013) […] XX protection of the labour market for women through specific incentives, as provided by law. BRASIL. Constituição Federal de 1988 . Available at: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicaocompilado. htm. (English version at http://www.stf.jus.br/repositorio/cms/portalStfInternacional/portalStfSobreCorte_ en_us/anexo/Constitution_2013.pdf). 53 CAVALCANTI, S. V. Igualdade, Discriminação Positiva e Políticas Públicas para Mulheres no Brasil. Revista do Mestrado em Direito da Universidade Federal de Alagoas , ano 2, n. 2, 1º Semestre, 2006, p. 369. 54 The law 11.340/2006 has created tools to fight domestic violence against women as determines the article 226, paragraph 8 of the 1988 Constitution and the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women. BRASIL. Lei 11.340, de 07 de agosto de 2006 . Available at:: http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2004-2006/2006/lei/l11340.htm. 55 RIFIOTIS, T. As delegacias especiais de proteção à mulher no Brasil e a «judiciarização» dos conflitos conjugais. Sociedade e Estado , Brasília, v. 19, n. 1, Junho, 2004, p. 90.

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