In Brazil, women are victims in six out of ten cases of racism online

Racism is gender-biased. In Brazil, women are the victims in six out of ten cases of racism and racial insult on social networks that have been tried in the last 12 years. Such is the conclusion in an unprecedented study by the Bahia School of Law, the Jus Brasil legal portal, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which looked at offenses against black people on social media.

A total of 107 lower court rulings were examined between July 2010 and October 2022 in criminal, civil, and labor cases involving the two types of crime.

According to the results, only 18.29 percent of the cases had men as victims. In 23.17 percent of the lawsuits, no gender was identified. This happens because these cases were episodes of racism in which a whole group of people are offended, and no one gender can be determined.

While a racial insult is defined as offending someone’s honor by referring to their race, color, ethnicity, religion, or origin, the crime of racism affects a group of individuals, discriminating against an entire race. Until the beginning of this year, racial insult had more lenient penalties, but Law 14.532, of January 12, 2023, equated insult with racism. Today, both crimes are non-bailable and are not subject to a statute of limitations.

Released during the seminar Challenges of Racism on the Web, promoted by Brazil’s Ministry of Racial Equality and the UNDP, the report aims to contribute to the debate on combating racism on social networks in Brazil. The initiative, the ministry and the United Nations program reported, aims to provide relevant information so that institutions and society can take more effective action to tackle the issue.

The main type of aggression against black people online, the survey points out, occurs through name-calling, derogatory slurs and animalization, targeting both men and women. As for the perpetrators, 55.56 percent were male, 40.74 percent female, and 3.7 percent did not have their gender identified. The report highlights that the presence of women among the aggressors is much higher than what is usually found in research into other types of crime.

Convictions

The survey identified 82 appeals. The majority, 61, are criminal in nature. Among these, 51 resulted in the conviction of the aggressors, the equivalent of 83.6 percent of convictions, either confirming a previous decision or reversing a first-instance decision that had found the aggressor innocent.

In terms of the type of sentence imposed, custodial sentences were more common for those convicted of insult (25%) than for discrimination (11.11%). For the other convictions, the court rulings were in favor of restricting rights. According to the study, the higher proportion of prison sentences in cases of racial insult is essentially due to the recidivism of the aggressors.

Three main types of evidence were found in racism and racial insult convictions on social media. Screenshots, which are documentary evidence, were the most frequently mentioned (44), followed by police reports (26) and witness statements (17).

None of the defendants was sentenced to life imprisonment. Of the 54 convictions considered, 49 had an open regime (convicts are not deprived of liberty), three had a semi-open regime (they must spend the night in prison), and two had no data. The average sentence for racial insult was 16.4 months, just over a third longer than the minimum sentence. This is believed to indicate that the judicial culture of applying the minimum sentence in Brazil is also seen in racial crimes.

Strides and concerns

Despite penalties falling hardly above the minimum sentence, the report states that progress has been made in recent years compared to the prosecution of racism and racial insult online. The authors of the study, however, still consider that there is need for progress on other issues.

“Most of the cases analyzed resulted in convictions, which indicates progress in dealing with these issues in the legal sphere. However, it is alarming to note there are a significant number of cases in which the victims have not had their rights guaranteed—either due to the lack of sanctions or the lack of clarity in the definition of discriminatory conduct,” the report warned.