HORROR, HONOUR AND RIGHTS - SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN IN THE 20TH CENTURY / "Horror, honra e direitos. Violência sexual contra crianças e adolescentes no século XX"

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2005

RESUMO

In this thesis, I describe the main changes in social sensibility towards child sexual violence in 20th century Brazil. First of all, I present the national law and the main international agreements in regard to sexual violence. Following, I will show some expert discourses that reflect different sensibilities over this topic and that, in some way, influenced legal definitions. In order to make this discussion, the following will be analysed: some influences of positivism in the medical and legal areas; some queries and opinions on prostitution and “manners police”; its work along with social workers; and, at last, the understandings of NGOs and psychologists. In the next chapter, I analyse some international social movements – also called civilising offensives – that intended to combat sexual violence, and its consequences in Brazil. Last, it will be shown what one of the most important daily newspapers in the country has published in this connection. Daily news will be used to discuss changes in the information published, in the kind of sexual crime depicted and how it is discussed. The main argument of this work is that child sexual violence was not an invisible problem to lay people nor to experts as physicians, people working in the legal system, police and social workers. Nevertheless, it was seen as an occasional problem related to morality. Towards the end of the 20th century, especially because of national and international NGOs, sexual violence came to be seen as a very recurrent problem and a topic that should be studied, quantified and scientifically analysed. What was occasionally portrayed in the media became a very common issue, reaching the head-lines. These changes can be explained by the shift in the balance of power between the sexes in favour of women and an increase in the social distance between adults and children, now understood as people with special need that should be protected and cared for. The theoretical approach is Norbert Elias’s process sociology. The thesis contains also an excursus, discussing changes in child sexual violence in 20th century Ireland. Differences and similarities between what happened in Ireland and in Brazil will be used to discuss social processes that lead sexual violence to be a topic of great concern in the last quarter of the century.

ASSUNTO(S)

sexualidade norbert elias pedofilia norbert elias crimes contra a honra violência sexual paedophilia sexuality sexual violence

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