BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

In this line, recently, Law n. 13.015/2015 included in the list of homicide qualifiers the so-called “feminicide”, when it is practiced against the woman for reasons of the female sex, considering these reasons of condition when the crime involves domestic and family violence; contempt or discrimination to the status of woman 20 , repeating the existence of gender inequality and the necessary state action in order to protect and guarantee equality. Thus, in spite of the persistence of violence against women in various social milieus, “and as if domestic violence was not enough to retard the progress of women’s rights, another means of violence has become increasingly visible in Brazilian society: obstetric violence”. 21 Due to a number of factors, obstetric violence has attracted attention and alarmed society, ranging from crises related to public health care to problems involving private rights in the relationship between health professionals and health plans. According to Elizabeth Kukura, 22 obstetric violence is the extension of abuse, coercion and other forms of mistreatment that women experience during childbirth, which, according to researchers who have studied this phenomenon, various practices have being identified to occur throughout the gestational period ranging from subtle humiliation to coercion to clinical treatments and verbal and physical abuse. In addition, women undergo forced cesarean sections and episiotomies (an incision made in the perineum to enlarge the birth canal) unnecessary, as well as delay or denial of pain relief, forced vaginal examinations. Some women who wish to decline a cesarean section in favor of continuous labor are labeled selfish or poor mothers. The author goes on to say that there are health care providers who violently disregard the principles of medical ethics and law. But the problems of abuse, coercion and mistreatment in childbirth are not just from the professionals. Instead, there are institutional factors and structural conditions that contribute to a professional culture that in some health care settings tolerate such actions. In addition, mistreatment of women during childbirth is permitted by social views that female bodies are objects to be used and that women as altruistic mothers must subjugate their own needs according to the needs of others. 23 The Second World War represented an initial milestone for the institutionalization of childbirth 24 , which was preferably made in the hospital environment, since, up until then, it was an act performed at home. This hospitalization process represented “the 20 BRASIL. Decreto-Lei n. 2.848, de 7 de dezembro de 1940 . Código Penal Brasileiro. Available in: . Acess in July 11, 2017. 21 ARSIE, Jaqueline Gonçalves. Violência obstétrica : uma violação aos direitos fundamentais da mulher. 2015. 96 f. Monografia (Graduação em Direito) – Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, 2015, p. 31. 22 KUKURA, Elizabeth. The problems with obstetric violence: applying vulnerability theory to improve maternity care. Vulnerability Workshop , Northeastern, apr. 2016, p. 3-4. 23 KUKURA, ibid., p. 3-4. 24 ARSIE, ibid., p. 33.

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