The Senate, through the CCJ (Commission on the Constitution and Justice), approved this Wednesday (6) PL (Bill) 2.325/2021, which prohibits the use of the “lawful defense of honor” thesis as an argument to justify those accused of femicide. The proposal is sent to the Chamber of Deputies, if there is no request for a vote at the plenary session.

In 2020, there were 3,913 reported homicides of women in Brazil, of which 1,350 were reported as femicides – Photo: Pixabay/ND

The bill was introduced by Senator Zenaida Maia (Pros) and the speaker was Senator Alexander Silveira (PSD). According to the text, the LP amends the Criminal Code (Decree Law 2848 of 1940) to exclude the mitigation and reduction of punishments related to violent emotions and the protection of moral or social values ​​in crimes of domestic and family violence.

Silveira states that the legal defense of honor thesis is “outdated and inconsistent with the values ​​and rights at work in our Federal Constitution. This is a thesis that contributes to the objectification of women. In other words, it reinforces the idea that a woman is an object that belongs to her spouse, partner, ”the senator argues.

Maya, in turn, argues that the “legitimate defense of honor” makes the victim responsible for the aggressions suffered and for his own death, and the accused turns into a “heroic defender of supposedly legitimate values.”

The text recalls that defending a femicide defendant usually tries to get jurors to ignore the victim by questioning their behavior and using the “strong emotion” argument to reduce the feminist’s sentence.

The so-called “legitimate defense of honor” became popular after the 1979 Doka Street Trial, when his girlfriend Angela Diniz was shot three years earlier while on vacation in Buzios, Rio de Janeiro.

According to the Brazilian Public Safety Yearbook 2021, there were 3,913 homicides of women in the country in 2020, of which 1,350 were reported as femicides, accounting for an average of 34.5% of the total homicides.

The highest homicide rate for women is found in Mato Grosso, with 3.6 homicides per 100,000 women. In Roraima and Mato Grosso do Sul, the rate is 3 per 100,000 women. An acre has a rate of 2.7. The lowest rate in Ceara, which was 0.6. In Santa Catarina, this figure is 1.6.

According to the Senate Agency*