Brazil & Southern Cone - March 2026

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has launched an initiative aimed at combatting violence against women. The move comes as Lula seeks re-election in October 2026, with crime and violence ranking high among voter concerns. Rising femicide rates have fuelled tensions between Lula’s left-wing government and right-wing leaders like Tarcísio de Freitas, the governor of São Paulo state, setting the stage for escalating debates over public security and women’s rights ahead of the general elections this year.

Lula held a ceremony on 4 February to launch what his government has dubbed the ‘Brazil pact of the three powers to address femicides’. This initiative marks an attempt to signal unity across the executive, legislature, and judiciary, setting up a working group to monitor the problem of violence against women and discuss potential policy solutions. However, in its coverage of Lula’s event, national daily Folha de São Paulo suggested that the initiative was a political spectacle full of rhetoric but lacking in concrete details of new security policies.

Ramping up the fight against femicides appears to be a message that both left-wing and right-wing politicians are willing to embrace. Left-wing parties such as Lula’s ruling Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) have long echoed the calls of feminist groups to address the problem of violence against women. It was the PT-led government of Lula’s previous presidential terms (2003-2011) that pushed for bills to punish femicide and increase prison sentences for domestic abusers, such as the landmark Maria da Penha law promulgated in 2006.

Meanwhile, right-wing opposition figures have been seeking to boost their credentials as security hardliners, especially ahead of the October general elections, given that pre-election opinion polls show that crime often ranks as among the top concerns of voters. Calls to keep women safe could form part of the broader tough-on-crime rhetoric of conservative candidates, such as the right-wing governor of São Paulo state, De Freitas (Republicanos), who has declared his intentions to run for re-election.

Allies of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023) have also spoken of the need to address violence against women, but they have linked the issue to other security proposals often backed by the far-right populist ‘Bolsonarismo’ movement, such as the loosening of gun control. In January Folha de São Paulo cited federal deputy Bia Kicis, a member of Bolsonaro’s right-wing Partido Liberal (PL), as calling for new laws to give women more access to firearms. “When you see an aggressor, would you rather have a gun or the Maria da Penha law?” she said.

Rising concerns

In December last year, thousands of demonstrators took part in protests organised by feminist activist groups in the streets of São Paulo and other major cities to express concern over the rising rates of violence against women in Brazil. The increased public attention around the issue came amid frequent reports in the local media in the latter months of 2025 about cases of women being murdered by their partners.

Stories of violent crime have long been a staple of local TV news channels, but the focus on gender violence intensified in 2025, adding to the sense that Brazil is experiencing an “epidemic” of femicides, as described by academics and researchers cited in the press last year. Official crime data backs up this perception of a femicide crisis.

According to figures in the database of the ministry of justice and public security, there were a total of 1,560 femicides registered in Brazil in 2025, equivalent to around four women killed per day. This marks a 3.93% increase compared to 2024 and continues the trend of the annual femicide tally rising every year for the past ten years. The annual figure for last year marks a 187.8% rise compared to a decade earlier, with a total of 542 femicides registered in 2015. Monthly femicide data showed that killings rose every month in the final months of 2025, from 122 femicides in September to 159 cases in December, which could also help to explain increased media attention on the problem during this period.

The state of São Paulo, which is Brazil’s most populous state, had the highest femicide tally, registering 270 cases in 2025. However, São Paulo’s femicide rate of 1.13 killings per 100,000 people is below the national average, which stood at 1.42 killings per 100,000 last year. The states with the highest femicide rates tended to be in poorer parts of the country, especially border states in northern Brazil. Considering the rate of femicides, the deadliest states in 2025 were the northern state of Acre, with 3.18 killings per 100,000 people; the northern state of Rondônia, registering 2.87 per 100,000; and the central-western state of Mato Grosso, with 2.74 per 100,000; followed by two other northern states – Tocantins, with 2.28 killings per 100,000, and Amapá, with 2.23 per 100,000.

Multiple factors

While there may be many correlating factors that could explain why femicides are higher in some states and regions, it is worth highlighting that Brazil’s border states tend to have under-resourced state police forces, and the northern and north-western borders cover dense Amazonian rainforest areas where criminal organisations run trafficking routes and other illicit activities.

This could support the arguments expressed by some right-wing figures that violence against women is a reflection of crime rates that are high in general, so the solution would be to combat gangs and crack down on criminals, with femicides falling as overall violent crime rates drop. However, while Brazil’s femicide numbers have been rising in recent years, murders have been declining, with the national murder tally dropping to its lowest level in a decade. The justice and public security ministry’s data shows a total of 31,448 murders in 2025, and a national murder rate of 14.74 killings per 100,000.

Another possible correlating factor could be economic decline and high levels of poverty, given that femicides are often connected to domestic abuse and poverty. This reasoning could back up the arguments often expressed by some left-wing figures highlighting that crime in general, not only violent crime and gender violence, can be reduced through poverty reduction and social welfare initiatives. Indeed, the state with the highest femicide rate in 2025, Acre, is one of Brazil’s poorest states. However, the state with the third highest femicide rate last year, Mato Grosso, ranks among the country’s wealthiest states in terms of GDP per capita and tends to post relatively low poverty rates.

Potential policy solutions

Ultimately, the complex problem of violence against women is driven by a wide range of variables, and experts on the issue do not suggest there is any silver bullet to stem the epidemic of femicides in Brazil, instead emphasising the need for holistic approaches. In an interview with Folha in December, lawyer Marina Ganzarolli, the head of feminist group Me Too Brasil, highlighted that Brazil already has tough laws to punish violence against women, and yet the levels of femicide continue to rise, so adopting an even more hardline security approach is unlikely to be enough. She argued that much broader, long-term policy initiatives would be needed, including educational programmes in schools to inform young boys about the problem and involve them in discussions for potential solutions.

Popular initiative

National pollster AtlasIntel released the results of a survey on 26 February which showed that Lula’s national pact against femicide was his government’s most popular security initiative. A total of 57% of survey respondents described the anti-femicide pact as ‘very important’ and 10% said it was ‘important’. This received much higher approval than the government’s flagship security reform proposal known as the ‘PEC da Segurança’, which proposes boosting cooperation between law enforcement institutions. Only 29% of survey respondents said the PEC was ‘very important’ and 25% described it as ‘important’.

São Paulo debates

While politicians declare their commitment to addressing the problem of femicides, the issue has also been politicised and more blame games could ensue in the coming months before Brazil’s general elections. In December last year the ruling left-wing Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) issued a statement to criticise São Paulo’s governor Tarcísio de Freitas, arguing that his spending cuts have reduced the capacity of the state government to effectively address the rising violence against women in the state.