MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil the seventh most violent country; in 30 years homicides soared 132%, says Map of Violence

Male, Afro-Brazilian, aged from 14 to 25, the most likely victims of violence

More than one million people were murdered in Brazil between 1980 and 2011, making it the world’s seventh-most violent country, according to the Map of Violence survey. In that period the homicides soared 132% to claim 1,145,208 lives, from a rate of 11.5 murders for 100,000 inhabitants in 1980 to 27 per 100,000 in 2011.

Among those aged between 14 and 25, homicides skyrocketed 326% to reach 53 per 100,000 inhabitants, said the study published by the Latin American Studies Center (Cebela).

In 2011, Brazil home to 194 million people, recorded 51,198 homicides, ranked seventh among the world’s most violent nations after El Salvador, the US Virgin Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Colombia and Guatemala.

From 2007, the study highlighted a resumption of a surge in violence after a drop in the previous decade, attributed mainly to public disarmament policies.

The survey showed that violence in Brazil, once concentrated in major metropolitan areas such as Sao Paulo and Rio, has spread nationwide over the past 10 years to the hinterland of most states, especially in the north, a trend that coincides with the expansion of new economic hubs.

In Maceio, capital of northeastern Alagoas state, homicide rates reached 111 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2011 (288 among the young), 10 times higher than in Sao Paulo.

The study also showed most murder victims are men (women represent only 8% of the total) and blacks (the number among them surged 30.6% to 35,297 in 2011 compared with a 26% fall among whites to 13,895 that same year.

Some 77% of young people murdered were Afro-Brazilians in a country where nearly 52% of the population is of African descent.

Some 206,000 homicides were recorded in the country between 2008 and 2011.

“This magnitude cannot be attributed to the continental size of Brazil,” the study warned, pointing out that among the world’s most populous countries, only Mexico comes close to Brazil with 22 homicides for 100,000 inhabitants.

The figures are one for 100,000 in China, 3.4 in India, 5.3 in the United States and 12.2 in Nigeria.

The authors of the study blamed impunity (only 5 to 8% of crimes are solved in Brazil compared with 80% in France) and insufficient efforts to combat a prevailing culture of violence.

And contrary to a popular belief in recent years, most murders in the country are not linked to organized crime and drug trafficking but are perpetrated for trivial or impulsive reasons, according to the report.