Activists have raised the alarm over police violence in the Brazilian state of Bahia, as new figures revealed that more children and adolescents are killed by the region’s security forces than anywhere else in the country.
Two hundred and eighty-nine people aged 19 and under were killed by police in Bahia last year, up from 242 in 2022, according to a new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety.
Last year, one in every three child victims of homicide in Bahia was killed by the police, the figures show.
Bahia is Brazil’s fourth-most populous state and the centre of the country’s Black culture. For the past 17 years it has been ruled by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ party (PT).
The new figures are likely to pile pressure on the party, which has failed to stop both police killings and the rise in general violence.
Although it ranks second in rate per 100,000 inhabitants – behind the Amazon state of Amapá – Bahia saw the largest total number of police killings last year.
“Bahia is the clearest example of how the left has no plan for public safety,” said Pablo Nunes, a political scientist and coordinator of the Center for Security and Citizenship Studies.
“In fact, what exists in Bahia is a public safety policy that aligns with all the most harmful experiences we’ve 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 had historically belonged to Rio de Janeiro.
Bahia’s 313% increase in police killings occurred between 2015 and 2022, during the governorship of Rui Costa, a prominent PT figure who went on to become Lula’s chief of staff and one of his top ministers.
Samira Bueno, executive director of the Forum on Public Safety, said the figures suggested that police in Bahia were accustomed to excessive use of force.
Although the new report did not detail the victims’ racial profiles by state, a 2022 study coordinated by Nunes showed that 94.76% of police victims, both adults and youths, were Black – a disproportionately higher rate compared with the state’s population, which is 80% Black.
“It’s a very lethal police force which exacerbates violence in poor areas, especially targeting Black boys and young people,” said Nunes.
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Black children and adolescents were also disproportionately represented among 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 across all age groups,” said Ana Carolina Fonseca, a protection officer at Unicef Brazil, noting that there was a disparity even among the very youngest members of society. Of homicide victims aged four and under, 64.3% were Black.
“There is a process of denying rights to the Black population in Brazil, starting in early childhood, excluding them from school and the protection system as a whole, which then repeats in violence,” she said.
The study also confirmed shocking data on sexual violence, which continues to rise significantly across the country: rape cases increased from 53,906 in 2022 to 63,430 last year. The vast majority of the victims were girls (87.3%).
“And these are certainly underreported cases,” said Bueno, noting that a recent study showed only 8.5% of cases are reported to the authorities.
“People fail to report for a number of reasons: fear, embarrassment or because often the victim is unable to recognise that they are being subjected to violence … Bringing this issue into the public debate is a first step towards addressing the problem of underreporting and developing strategies that will effectively change this reality.”
