The Permanent Forum on Domestic and Gender Violence of the School of Magistrates of Rio de Janeiro (EMERJ), in partnership with the Center for Research on Gender, Race and Ethnicity (NUPEGRE), held on March 22nd the webinar Case Marcia Barbosa v. Brazil and the Violation of Human Rights of Women, which was coordinated by Judge Adriana Ramos de Melo and with several speakers lawyers and judges. Leila Linhares Barsted, member of the Forum, participated in the Opening Table of this event.
This was the first feminicide case judged by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and it concerns the murder of Marcia Barbosa, in 1998, whose body was thrown in a forest after she had suffered several violent acts without her aggressor being judged because, being a state deputy, he benefited from his parliamentary immunity without the State Legislative Assembly approving the breaking of this prerogative.
Marcia Barbosa was a young black woman who, in addition to being murdered, had her name published in offensive and misogynistic posts that caused serious moral damage to her family. The case was brought to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights which, in 2019, condemned the Brazilian State for having arbitrarily obstructed access to justice for the family members of Marcia Barbosa de Souza, for the lack of due diligence in the investigation, for judicial inefficiency and a set of other serious disrespects to international human rights treaties and conventions.