Copenhagen + 5

The subject of human rights acquires unique importance when dealing with the feminine condition in Brazil. Particularly since one faces a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, the speed and intensity with which women occupy their place in the new mass society, notwithstanding barriers and prejudice, come as a surprise even to the most optimistic observers. More women than men attend school. The average schooling of women has surpassed that of men in the last years, and, four out of each ten people participating of the economically active population are women.

On the other hand, although they tend to be more educated than their male colleagues are, women not only receive salaries 33%, in average, below those paid to men, but they also have less opportunities for professional progress. Furthermore, a woman heads one in every four Brazilian families. If this matriarch is black, the chances of her family being very poor are much bigger.

Parallel to the progress achieved in education and to specific women’s health programmes, Government has been working at three other crucial aspects of the feminine issue: to fight violence against women, to provide equal opportunities in public service and to improve the institutional mechanisms for the promotion of the feminine condition.

To fight violence against women

The current Government had the pioneer initiative to create the National Programme for Fighting Violence Against Women. Within the scope of this Programme, the following are deemed relevant initiatives: a) a law meant to especially punish domestic violence; b) the establishment, all over the national territory, of shelter-homes for women victimised by domestic violence, such as the ones already in existence in nine states; c) the expansion of Police Precincts Specialised in Women; the adoption in the hospitals of the public network and in those having agreements with the public network of a specific register for victims of domestic and sexual violence; e) the permanent struggle against sexual exploitation.

To encourage equal opportunities

In Brazil, although they represent a high percentile of civil servants, women occupy proportionally low number of vacancies in the higher levels of public service. To correct this distortion, Government has instituted a Plan for the Promotion of Equality of Opportunities Between Men and Women in Public Service. The initiative is also aimed at being an example for other spheres of government and for the private sector.

To improve the institutional mechanisms for promoting the feminine condition

In compliance with commitments undertaken by Brazil in the Beijing World Conference, in 1995, the National Council for Women’s Rights, linked to the Ministry of Justice but including representatives of society, was charged with designing a national plan for the promotion of gender equality.

The scope of this programme will be upgraded, thanks to the institutional mechanisms referred to in the following commitments: a) to strengthen the National Council for Women’s Rights, so that it actively participates of the formulation and follow up of related public policies, as well as of the review of the legislation in force, in order to eliminate any discrimination between sexes; b) to endow the Council with the means allowing it to foster partnerships between the levels of authority, public and private, geared to the promotion of the feminine condition in the country; c) to encourage state and municipality governments to put in place their own organisations for the defence of women’s rights, in order to create a network of promotion of equality covering the whole national territory.

Main progresses in education

Equity according to gender, in education, has practically been attained in Brazil. Dada pertaining to 1998 show that the difference in favour of men, in the average schooling as recorded until 1995, no longer exists. The change in this picture depicts, in particular, the speed at which illiteracy has been declining amongst younger women.

The educational raise of women is proven when one compares the levels of schooling of the population according to gender. Until the late 1980s, there prevailed a historical pattern in which men had an advantage, in terms of the average of years of schooling. This position has inverted in the 1990s, when women improved more rapidly their educational profile.

Indeed, in the period from 1990 to 1996, the average of years of study increased from 5.1 to 5.7 among men, and from 4.9 to 6.0 among women, which indicates that they took a leap of more than one year, whilst men advanced half a year.

Among the social and economic and cultural factors explaining this phenomenon, doubtless the one having has most influence has been women’s access to the labour market. Professionalisation encourages women to seek a better level of schooling, even as a means to compensate the gender-related salary discrimination, that still exists.

On the other hand, and paradoxically, the perverse and precocious entrance to the labour market of male children and teen-agers, coming from low-income families, contributes to the more accelerated advance of schooling levels amongst women. This factor of school exclusion is been tackled by means of initiatives such as the programmes for the complementation of family income related to education. The best-consolidated experiences, such as the school-scholarship, have proven the efficacy of this strategy to ensure the permanence of deprived children in the school system.

Programmes of special assistance to women’s health

The Programme for Integral Assistance to Women’s Health has three main areas of action: reducing maternal mortality, rendering more humane the assistance to pregnant women and diminishing the cases of cancer of the womb colon.

Two important indicators verify the advance achieved in basic assistance to women: a) the number of pre-natal exams carried out by the public health system has moved from 2.8 million, in 1995, to 7.6 million, in 1998, although the birth rate is in decline. Even so, this number is expected to double by 2002; b) the number of gynaecological medical consultations moved from 7.6 million to 13.1 millions, in the same period - a 72% growth.

The successive national campaigns aimed at encouraging breast-feeding have been presenting results beyond expectations. The World Report on Childhood of UNICEF indicated Brazil as the second country in the world in which the habit of breast-feeding has most increased. With 137 accredited hospitals by late 1999, Brazil currently also is the country having the highest number of Human Milk Banks in the world - a total of 114, located in 21 of the 26 states of the Federation and in the Federal District.

In terms of woman-specific care, one notices that, despite the extraordinary progress of medicine, lack of information and of pre-emption are the major allies of diseases such as cancer of the womb colon. Because it is not timely diagnosed and treated, this disease accounts for the death of one Brazilian woman every hour and fifteen minutes, and for 15% of malignant tumours detected in women in the country. During the campaign for the pre-emption of womb-colon cancer, in 1999, 1.2 million women having some type of infection and 53.9 thousand having womb-colon cancer were identified.

In order to reduce the risks of maternal/infantile mortality and to encourage the practice of natural childbirth, a maximal percentile of Caesarean operations to be paid to hospitals by the public health system has been established. As an immediate outcome, the rate of Caesarean operations in the public network and in hospitals having agreements with the public health service experienced an initial drop from 33% to 28%. Only from June to November 1998, 106 thousand women were preventing from exposure to a useless and unnecessary surgical risk. Maternal mortality and teen-age pregnancy remain, however, significant challenges to be faced in the domain of women’s health.