The case of sexual harassment involving singer MC Guimê and Mexican model Dania Mendez on Big Brother Brasil (BBB), on TV Globo, heated up the debate on crimes of a sexual nature against women.
The lawyer and president of the Instituto Justiça de Saia Gabriela Manssur explains that, since 2018, the year of the emergence of the sexual harassment law, all sexual crimes in Brazil are prosecuted through unconditional public criminal action.
“This means that, regardless of the victim’s manifestation or will, of the victim’s formal complaint, if other people are aware of the situation and report it, even anonymously, or if the authority itself is aware of the situation, they can and must initiate a investigative procedure to verify the facts and forward it to the Public Prosecutor’s Office which, if convinced of the evidence, can file a complaint to criminally prosecute the author of the facts”, explains Manssur.
“So there is no need for the victim to express his will precisely because at these times they don’t even know if it is rape, harassment, flirting, they are in a situation of relativizing their own defense”, he adds.
The lawyer also questions the environments where harassment occurs and do not have protocols to deal with the situation. “These are situations that call into question the performance and women lose credibility and confidence to denounce for fear of turning against them”, says Manssur.
(Published by Gustavo Zanfer, with information from Letícia Brito, from CNN )
Source: CNN Brasil
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