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The Federal Court of Audits and the National Judicial Council, respectively, verify financial disclosure statements of employees in the judiciary and legislature. The Federal Revenue Office also can provide a public employee's asset declaration if that person is under investigation for illicit enrichment. While asset declarations are not made public, federal employees' salaries and payment information are posted online and can be searched by name. Such information became available on the government's transparency website when the new Law on Access to Public Information went into effect in June.
Public Access to Information: The law provides for public access to unclassified government information. The list of exceptions is sufficiently narrow and includes personal information; information that affects public safety or health, national security, or international relations; and sensitive military and intelligence information.
The only fees charged are the costs of printing, copying, and mailing documentation. The government office has 20 days to respond to requests and can request an additional 10 days, for a maximum total of 30 days, after receiving the request. Agencies responded with full information 78 percent of the time within 11 days. Employees are subject to administrative sanctions for noncompliance and criminal charges if found to have fraudulently or deliberately destroyed or withheld information. Section 5. A number of domestic and international human rights groups generally operated without government restriction, investigating and publishing their findings on human rights cases.
Federal officials were cooperative and responsive to their views. Federal and state officials in many cases sought the aid and cooperation of domestic and international NGOs in addressing human rights problems; for instance, the Ministry of Labor MTE partnered with the International Labor Organization ILO to formulate national strategies for combating forced and child labor.
The secretariat has jurisdiction over issues regarding persons with disabilities, LGBT persons, the elderly, children, and government representation in international and regional human rights fora in conjunction with the Ministry of External Relations.
Photos only. In that context, however, rather than a theory or a specialty, Christian Psychology stands as a religious identity of a group of professionals. We all have certain emotional needs and if they are not fulfilled by our significant other, we naturally seek other ways to fulfill them. A mistress who does all the things that your wife wont do? Conditions in many prisons were poor and sometimes life threatening, but many states made efforts to improve conditions.
The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate had human rights committees that operated without interference and participated in several activities nationwide in coordination with domestic and international human rights organizations. Marco Feliciano's appointment in March as president of the Chamber of Deputies' commission on human rights sparked controversy because of racist and homophobic comments he had made in the past, as well as his support for a law that would allow mental-health professionals to treat homosexuality as a mental disorder.
Most states had police ombudsmen, but their accomplishments varied considerably, depending on such factors as funding and outside political pressure. The National Truth Commission, established in , continued its investigations into alleged human rights abuses committed from to Commission members met regularly to discuss progress on their specific areas of research. At a May seminar commemorating its first year of work, the commission released a formal progress report and demonstrated a prototype of the online application containing primary documents used by the commission to accompany the release of the final written report, due May Due to the volume of documents and witness testimony that still required analysis, the commission requested an extension of at least six months.
In July Pernambuco state's Truth Commission, in its first year of existence, reported the investigation of 51 cases of deaths and disappearances dating back to the military government. In two of these cases — including the case of Father Antonio Henrique, whose body was found with signs of torture in — the commission reached a provisional finding that the deaths were politically motivated.
The law prohibits and penalizes discrimination on the basis of race, gender, disability, or social status, but discrimination continued against women, Afro-Brazilians, indigenous persons, and LGBT persons. Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape, including spousal rape; sentences for convictions range from six to 30 years in prison.
Domestic violence remained both widespread and underreported to the authorities, due to fear of retribution, further violence, and social stigma. The law stipulates a penalty of three months to three years in prison for persons who commit domestic violence, and authorities generally enforced the law effectively. Official statistics regarding the number of prosecutions and convictions were not available.
The federal government continued to operate a toll-free nationwide hotline for women. In the hotline registered , calls reporting domestic violence, 11 percent more than in Calls to the hotline leveled off after an initial surge, which government officials attributed to greater awareness among women of the hotline program.
According to hotline data, 57 percent of the complaints received in concerned physical abuse. An international hotline service enabled Brazilian victims of gender-based violence to call in from Italy, Spain, and Portugal. In the first six months of the year, the international service received 90 calls, resulting in 33 women receiving assistance abroad. The program aims to increase the capacity of the women's hotline, provide more public health-care options for women, and construct 27 women's centers throughout the country that integrate specialized police, judicial, prosecutorial, health, employment, and other ministerial resources.
In January the Pernambuco State Technical Chamber for Combating Violence against Women began operations as part of a statewide public security initiative. The chamber is responsible for monitoring and reporting monthly to the governor all actions taken to promote the eradication of violence against women.
In April the Espirito Santo State Court of Justice and the city of Vitoria distributed a "panic button" device to victims of domestic violence as part of the municipality's protection program. The device can send an alert with the victim's exact location to a monitoring center and also capture and record conversations that can be used as evidence in court. A report by the Rio de Janeiro Public Security Institute revealed an increase in the number of reported rapes in the state. According to the report, from January to July there were 3, cases, compared with 2, during the same period in Authorities attributed the increase partly to victims' increased willingness to report assaults.
The Sao Paulo State Court of Justice created three new special courts of domestic and family violence against women. As of September the state of Sao Paulo had a total of 10 special courts to deal with domestic violence. As of July the courts had considered 35, cases, mostly related to threats of violence, rape, and coercion. There was no information available on the number of prosecutions or convictions. Each state secretariat for public security operated police stations dedicated exclusively to addressing crimes against women. The stations provided psychological counseling, temporary shelter, and hospital treatment for victims of domestic violence and rape, as well as criminal prosecution assistance by investigating incidents and forwarding evidence to courts.
There were also reference centers and 77 temporary women's shelters operated by state and local governments. The Secretariat for Women's Policies reported that fewer than 10 percent of municipalities had a dedicated space for the protection and care of victims of gender-based violence. The plan's main focus was to address gender inequality through public policies that promote the economic, cultural, and political autonomy of women in order to eradicate extreme poverty and enable full participation in society.
The Secretariat for Women's Policies acted as the coordinating agency for all actions carried out under the Third National Plan and evaluated the end results across government organs. The law requires health facilities to contact the police about cases in which a woman was harmed physically, sexually, or psychologically to collect evidence and statements should the victim decide to prosecute.
The office undertakes surveys and studies on the situation of women, specifically pertaining to gender-based violence; works with international organizations and NGOs to share best practices; and heads a network of protection for victims of gender-based violence in conjunction with NGOs, state, and local governments. A study on gender-based violence GBV published by the Institute for Applied Economic Research reported that between and , the country registered nearly six killings for every , women. The study also compared data on GBV-related homicides before and after the passage of the Maria da Penha law to reduce domestic violence and found that GBV rates had remained stable since Sexual Harassment: Sexual harassment is a criminal offense, punishable by up to two years in prison.
The law encompasses sexual advances in the workplace or educational institutions and between service providers or clients. In the workplace it applies only in hierarchical situations where the harasser is of higher rank or position than the victim. The government generally enforced sexual harassment laws effectively.
No official data were available on the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace, but in a survey conducted by the Sao Paulo Secretary's Union, 25 percent of secretaries in the state claimed to have been sexually harassed by their supervisors.
Reproductive Rights: Couples and individuals have the right to decide the number, spacing, and timing of children and had the information and means to do so free from discrimination, coercion, and violence. Access to information on contraception; skilled attendance at delivery; and prenatal, postpartum, and essential obstetric care generally were available. According to the UN Population Fund report, skilled health personnel assisted in 99 percent of births.
Discrimination: The cabinet-level Secretariat for Women's Policies supervises a special entity charged with overseeing the legal rights of women. Women's labor force participation 75 percent was below that of men 85 percent , and women were more likely to work in the informal sector.
Although the law prohibits discrimination based on gender in employment and wages, the IBGE reported that in women received 72 percent of the income of men for comparable work. Birth Registration: Citizenship is derived from birth in the country or from a parent. According to IBGE census data, there were approximately , unregistered children nationwide.
Without birth certificates children cannot be vaccinated or enrolled in school. If the problem persisted into adulthood, an unregistered adult could not obtain a worker's card or receive retirement benefits. The CNJ, in partnership with the SDH, aimed to reduce the number of such children by registering children born in maternity wards. The National Documentation of Rural Workers initiative offered assistance in obtaining identification cards, birth certificates for children born in rural areas, labor cards, and tax documents.
From to the end of , more than , women and children had been documented through the program. Child Abuse: Abuse and neglect of children and adolescents were problems and included rape, molestation, and impregnation of girls by family members. The SDH oversaw the National Program to Confront Sexual Violence against Children and Adolescents, which established nationwide strategies for combating child sexual abuse and best practices for treating victims. From January to November, the SDH-operated Dial , a hotline for complaints of sexual abuse against children and adolescents, logged 35, complaints, compared with 19, during all of According to the SDH, the rise was due to increased national awareness of what constituted sexual abuse and sexual exploitation.
The program served 3. According to data released by the National Register of Sheltered Children and the Public Ministry, there were approximately 45, children and adolescents living in 4, shelters provided by NGOs, churches, and other religious organizations throughout the country. The Public Ministry released data in August claiming that one-third of the sheltered children exceeded the two years they were allowed by law to reside in shelters and that 86 percent of children in shelters had families they could rejoin after two years.
The Death Threat Protection Program for Children and Adolescents brought in 1, children and adolescents and 2, families in , the latest period for which data were available. A majority of those shielded by the program had received death threats due to involvement in drug trafficking, and most entered the program accompanied by one or more family members.
The program offered psychological counseling and technical courses to reinsert these youth into stable community situations. Forced and Early Marriage: The legal minimum age of marriage is 18 age 16 with parental or legal representative consent. Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law sets a minimum age of 14 for consensual sex, with the penalty for statutory rape ranging from eight to 15 years in prison.