Activists have raised alarm over police violence in the Brazilian state of Bahia, as new figures show that more children and young people are killed by security forces in the region than anywhere else in the country.
Last year, 289 people aged 19 and under were killed by police in Bahia, up from 242 in 2022, a new report said. report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the Brazilian Forum for Public Safety.
Figures show that last year one in three child victims of murder in Bahia was killed by police.
Bahia is BrazilThe fourth most populous state and the center of the country’s black culture. For the past 17 years it has been governed by the Workers’ Party (PT) of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The new figures are likely to increase pressure on the party, which has failed to stop both police killings and a rise in general violence.
Although it ranks second in terms of deaths per 100,000 inhabitants – after the Amazonian state of Amapá – Bahia was the country with the highest number of police deaths last year.
“Bahia is the clearest example of how the left has no plan for public security,” said Pablo Nunes, political scientist and coordinator of the Center for Security and Citizenship Studies.
“In fact, in Bahia there is a public security policy that is in line with the most damaging experiences we have seen in recent years from so-called far-right governments,” he added.
In 2022, Bahia’s state police became the most violent in the country, taking over a position that historically belonged to Rio de Janeiro.
Bahia’s Between 2015 and 2022, there was a 313% increase in police killingsduring the governorship of Rui Costa, a leading PT figure who later became Lula’s chief of staff and one of his most important ministers.
According to Samira Bueno, director of the Forum for Public Safety, the figures suggest that the police in Bahia are accustomed to using excessive force.
While the new report did not include detailed information on the racial profiles of victims by state, Study 2022 A study by Nunes found that 94.76% of police victims, both adults and juveniles, were black — a disproportionately high percentage compared to the state’s population, which is 80% black.
“It is a very deadly police force that exacerbates violence in poor areas, especially targeting black boys and youth,” Nunes said.
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Black children and adolescents are also disproportionately victims of violence across the country: a black boy is 4.4 times more likely to be murdered than a white boy.
“Race is a determining factor in the outcome of death in all age groups,” said Ana Carolina Fonseca, a protection officer with UNICEF Brazil, who noted that there was a disparity even among the youngest members of society. Of the homicide victims aged four and under, 64.3% were black.
“There is a process of deprivation of the rights of black people in Brazil, starting in early childhood, excluding them from school and from the protection system as a whole, which is then repeated in violence,” she said.
The study also confirmed shocking data on sexual violence, which continues to rise significantly across the country: the number of rape cases rose from 53,906 in 2022 to 63,430 last year. The vast majority of victims were girls (87.3%).
“And these are certainly cases that are not being reported,” Bueno said, noting that a recent study showed that only 8.5% of cases are reported to authorities.
“People do not report for various reasons: fear, shame or because the victim is often unable to recognise that he or she is a victim of violence… By bringing this issue into the public debate, we are taking a first step towards addressing the problem of underreporting and developing strategies that can effectively change this reality.”
