Brazil recorded one rape every six minutes in 2023
Brazil recorded one rape crime every six minutes in 2023. Cases of rape and statutory rape totaled 83,988, up 6.5 percent from 2022. Women are the majority of victims and the aggressors are most often inside the home.
The data were released Thursday (Jul. 18) by the Brazilian Public Security Forum. In addition to the record number of rapes, the numbers point to an increase in all types of violence against women in the country and show that the profile of the aggressors has remained the same: almost all are men—which may seem obvious, especially to women, but, as the Forum pointed out, needs to be stressed, especially when devising public policies to prevent this crime.
According to the document, 76 percent of all 2023 cases were instances of statutory rape, which is defined in Brazilian law as the practice of lewd acts with victims who are under the age of 14 or incapable of consenting for any reason, such as disability or illness.
Profile
The profile of the victims has not changed significantly compared to previous years. They are typically black (52.2%) girls (88.2%), aged no more than 13 (61.6%). Nor have there been any variations in perpetrators or the location of the crime: 84.7 percent of the aggressors are family members or acquaintances, who commit the rape in the victims' own homes (61.7%). Victims up to the age of 17 made up 77.6 percent of all records.
The report draws attention to the prevalence of rapes of children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 13, with 233.9 cases per 100 thousand people—a rate almost six times higher than the national average of 41.4 for every 100 thousand. In the case of babies and children aged zero to four, the rate of rape reached 68.7 cases per 100 thousand people—1.6 times higher than the national average.
The majority of these victims are female. Among boys, the highest incidence of rape occurs between the ages of four and six, falling dramatically as adulthood approaches.
