GENDER, RACE AND POVERTY:
addressing multiple identities through law
November 12th-14th 2014, São Paulo, Brazil
FGV DIREITO SP Auditorium - Rua Rocha, n° 233
Organization
Marta Machado (FGV DIREITO SP)
Sandra Fredman (University of Oxford)
Cathi Albertyn (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg)
Fernanda Matsuda (FGV DIREITO SP)
Support
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo - FAPESP
Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Capes
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq
Objectives
The purpose of the workshop is to bring together researchers from different parts of the
world to share their findings about the role of law in addressing some of the most
challenging aspects of discrimination: those involving the intersection between gender, race
and poverty. There were few opportunities of getting together researchers in Latin America,
Africa, Europe and North America to work together on these issues. Despite the problems,
the legal challenges and possibilities for reform are similar and closely related. The
workshop will address the international and comparative law, and theory and practice.
Context
The World Development Report 2012 identified substantive victories for women: there was
an increase in their schooling, in their life expectancy and in their participation in the labor
market. However, these gains were not reachable to poor women. Women in countries with
low and middle income are more likely than men to die, they face unequal access to
economic opportunities and are being marginalized in their homes and in society. This
results in a cycle of discrimination and disempowerment. Women are responsible for a
disproportionate share of care tasks in their homes, an activity that is not valued or
remunerated, leading to lower levels of education and lack of preparation to seek financial
independence in the formal labor market or to break with prejudices and stereotypes the
role of women.
Whereas the World Development Report highlights that these gaps are more pronounced
when gender and poverty are combined with other exclusion factors – ethnicity, caste,
remoteness, age, race, disability and sexual orientation – there should have a critical study
of forms of interaction between gender, race and poverty. While the feminization of poverty
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is a phenomenon long recognized, gender inequality, racial inequality and poverty are
conceptualized as separate problems. Poverty is often approached from a neutral point of
view with regard to gender, rather than adopting a comprehensive, integrated and holistic
gender perspective. Likewise, racial discrimination is accessed by a neutral perspective
regarding both gender and poverty. These approaches are not adequate to portray the
various and intricate human rights violations experienced by poor women with multiple
identities.
The workshop aims to bring together a diverse group of participants to explore current
developments, analyze the weaknesses and try to aim for the future improvements in the
case of the ways the structures of human rights can take care of these issues.
Workshop programme
November 12th (Wednesday)
9.00-9.30 am: Opening
Oscar Vilhena (Dean FGV Direito SP)
Sandra Fredman (University of Oxford)
Marta Machado (FGV Direito SP)
Cathi Albertyn (University of the Witwatersrand)
1st Section: Women and economy
Panel 1 9.30 am-12.00 pm: Labor market: diagnosis and challenges for equality
 Mediation: Luciana Ramos (FGV DIREITO SP)
 Sandra Fredman (University of Oxford): Domestic work: dilemmas for multiple
identities
 Marcia Lima (University of São Paulo/CEBRAP): Domestic work in Brazil: recent
changes
 Ligia Pinto Sica (FGV DIREITO SP): Participation of women in senior management
positions
 Maria Rosa Lombardi (Fundação Carlos Chagas): Inequalities in labor market: gender
and race intersections
 Debate
12.00-13.30 pm: Lunch
Panel 2 13.30-15.30 pm: Negotiating subjectivities: institutions, market and intimacy
 Mediation: Juana Kweitel (Conectas)
 Prabha Kotiswaran (King’s College): Sex work: a postcolonial materialist feminist
approach
 Margareth Rago (Unicamp): Neoliberalism, subjectivities and feminist resistance
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Einat Albin (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): Required intimacy: the case of
domestic workers
India Geronimo Thusi (University of Witwatersrand): Policing “Sex”: relations
between police and sex workers in South Africa
Debate
Panel 3 15.30-18.00 pm: Public policies for equality: labor market, social security and income
distribution
 Mediation: Jed Kroncke (FGV DIREITO SP)
 Beth Goldblatt (University of Technology, Sydney): Contesting categories in social
security – a role for equality in redefining the social security right
 Lena Lavinas (UFRJ): “Bolsa Família”: how cash transfers affect poor woman
autonomy and gender relations
 Sergio Costa (Frei Universität Berlin): Protection without redistribution? The
persistence of gender and race-related inequalities in Latin America
 Helena Alviar (University of Los Andes): The gender of progressive legalism in Latin
America: social policy and the construction of motherhood
 Debate
18.00 pm: Book release: Percepções sobre Desigualdade e Pobreza, by Lena Lavinas
November 13th (Thursday)
2nd Section: Reproductive rights, right to health and violence
Panel 4 9.00-11.00 am: Abortion: advances and setbacks in the struggle for rights’
realization and expansion
 Mediation: Eloísa Machado (FGV DIREITO SP)
 Debora Diniz (Instituto Anis): Abortion, reproductive rights and right to heath
 Cathi Albertyn (University of the Witwatersrand): Equality, poverty and abortion in
South Africa
 Maria Abreu (UFRJ): Being a mother: from duty to power – abortion rights and
maternity in Brazil
 Marta Machado (FGV DIREITO SP): Abortion and legal mobilization in Brazil
 Debate
Panel 5 11.00-12.30 pm: Maternity policies and impacts on women’s lives and health
 Mediation: Camila de Jesus Mello Gonçalves (FGV DIREITO SP)
 Raquel Marques (USP and Artemis): Obstetric violence: abuse without witnesses
 Ana Gabriela Braga (UNESP): The exercise of motherhood by women in prison
 Debate
12h30h-14h: Lunch
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Panel 6 14.00-16.00 pm: Violence against women in Brazil: accessing the enforcement of
Maria da Penha Law
 Mediation: Carmen Fullin (São Bernardo do Campo School of Law)
 Wânia Pasinato (Center of Study on Violence, University of Sao Paulo – NEV):
Domestic and family violence and the limits of the protection and promotion of
women's rights
 Carmen Hein Campos (University of Vila Velha): Challenges to Maria da Penha Law
implementation: the work of the parliamentary committee of inquiry
 Concepción Pazo (Social Medicine Institute/UERJ): Impasses and nuances in the
institutionalization of Maria da Penha Law: brief analysis of audiences on a Judgeship
for Domestic and Family Violence against Women of a city in Rio de Janeiro
 Denise Dora (Themis): Access to justice and the experience of “Promotoras Legais
Populares” in Brazil
 Debate
16.00-16.30 pm: Coffee break
Panel 7 16.30-18.00 pm: Femicide: an extreme form of violence against women
 Mediation: Olívia Pessoa (Secretariat for the Judiciary Reform)
 Maria Amélia Almeida Teles (Women’s Union and São Paulo State Truth Comission):
Gender violence and civil-military dictatorship
 Fernanda Matsuda/FGV DIREITO SP: Fatal domestic violence: the problem of intimate
femicide in Brazil
 Aline Yamamoto (Secretariat for Women’s Policies): The national policy on violence
against women and femicide in Brazil
 Debate
November 14th (Friday)
3rd Section: Women’s rights: justice system and public policies
Panel 8 9.00-11.00 am: Intersectionality, institutions and rights
 Mediation: Natália Neris (FGV DIREITO SP)
 Laura Hilly (Oxford Human Rights Hub): Standing at the Intersections: do the
identities of judges matter?
 Shreya Atrey (NALSAR Law University): Re-envisioning intersectionality: making
discriminations law responds to multiple identities
 Elsje Bonthuys (University of Witwatersrand): Discourses of gender and race in the
appointment of women judges in South Africa
 Meghan Campbell (University of Oxford): How has the CEDAW Committee used the
State Reporting Process to remedy gendered poverty?
 Debate
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11.00-13.00 pm: Round table: Construction and evaluation of public policies on gender, race
and poverty
 Mediation: Adilson Moreira (FGV DIREITO SP)
 Luiza Helena de Bairros, Minister of Secretariat for Policies of Promotion
of Racial Equality
 Aline Yamamoto, Representative of Secretariat for Women’s Policies
 Fátima Rampin, Representative of Ministry of Social Security
 Vanessa Vieira, Representative of Specialized Center for Combating Discrimination,
Racism and Prejudice - Public Defense Office of the State of São Paulo
 Daniela Skromov de Albuquerque, Representative of Specialized Center for
Citizenship and Human Rights - Public Defense Office of the State of São Paulo
 Denise Motta Dau, Secretary of Municipal Secretariat for Women's Policies of the
City of São Paulo
 Ana Rita Souza Prata, Representative of the Center for the Promotion and Defense of
Women's Rights - Public Defense Office of the State of São Paulo
 Angelica de Almeida, Representative of the Coordination for Women under
Domestic Violence Situation of the Appeal Court of São Paulo
 Silvia Chakian de Toledo Santos, Representative of the Special Action Group on
Combating Domestic Violence - Public Prosecutor Office of the State of São Paulo
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