BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

has been diminishing, new affirmative action measures are necessary to guarantee women and men earn the same amount. More than thirty years have passed since the 1988 Constitution, in which men and women are supposed to be alike, but intervention is still necessary since there is no gender equality in financial aspects. Concerning labour positions, women participation arose in 17% in twenty years: they were 37,4% in 1995 and represented 43,7% in 2015, showing a more significant advance. 67 Finally, about violence against women, the Brazilian Secretary of Policies to Women informed there were 1.133.345 (a million a hundred and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and forty-five) violence reports in 2016, 51% more than the numbers from 2015, 749.024 (seven hundred forty-nine thousand and twenty-four) cases. The numbers show women are still victims of sexual offences and domestic violence in Brazil, despite the law to protect them and the specialised police stations. The number has been increasing, what demonstrates the measures taken so far are inefficient to protect women. 6. Conclusion Analysing the gender affirmative action measures’ historical development in Brazil shows how discrimination and social exclusion have evolved from formal equality, where there was no space for positive discrimination, to the quest for substantial equality, based on compensatory policies favouring excluded groups. Achieving substantial equality became a public policy from the 1988 Constitution, with affirmative action measures aimed at women. Also, the Constitution established the prohibition against all forms of discrimination. Brazil takes an important role in the international scenario because it is a signatory of all declarations, conventions and treaties on human rights and especially due to it aims to extinguish all forms of discrimination in its territory. The 1988 Constitution promulgation happened thirty years ago and, since then, the Brazilian Government has been working hard on implementing public policies to compensate and guarantee full gender equality. Many affirmative action measures implemented in Brazil are polemic, and their results are leading cases in the country’s highest courts of justice. It happened whereas, while to some people the measures are necessary and valid, considering they can correct historical discrimination processes, to others they represent nothing but a new form of discrimination, which they consider unsuitable nowadays. According to this second group, the affirmative action measures are merely assistant, and they would only weaken the beneficiaries’ self-esteem because their achievements in society would not consider their merits. However, the emotional arguments do not sustain themselves according to the social exclusion numbers collected by the United Nations, the Organization of American 67 KNAPP, E. Dois séculos separam mulheres e homens da igualdade no Brasil. Jornal Folha de São Paulo , 26/09/2015. Available at: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/asmais/2015/09/1675183-no-ritmo-atual-fim- da-desigualdade-entre-homens-e-mulheres-demoraria-240-anos.shtml.

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