MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro accused of tolerating child prostitution

I have always fought pedophilia, Bolsonaro insisted

Brazil's incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro has been accused by former President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva's camp of tolerating child prostitution, less than two weeks before the Oct. 30 runoffs.

Lula's team accused Bolsonaro of being a “pervert” and a hypocrite for presenting himself as the defender of morality and the family, and a congressman from Brasília asked the courts to investigate whether the president had committed prevarication by having witnessed what he believed to be a crime and not reporting it.

In a podcast last Friday, Bolsonaro mentioned how in 2020, when he toured Brasilia on a motorcycle to publicly challenge the coronavirus quarantine, he entered the house of some Venezuelan teenagers residing in a poor community of Brasilia.

“I stopped the motorcycle in a corner, I saw some girls, pretty girls, 14, 15 years old, they were dressed up, on a Saturday in a community. They looked alike. It was cool and I went back. I asked them to enter the house and I went in. There were about 20 of them getting ready, all Venezuelan. I asked myself... Do pretty girls 14 or 15 years old get dressed up on a Saturday? What for? To make a living,” Bolsonaro said.

The statement aimed at criticizing the Venezuelan government for the massive diaspora caused a stir since Bolsonarists boast an alleged moral superiority and a greater Christian stature in front of Lula regarding family, abortion, and gender identity. Bolsonaro's terms Portuguese users link to sexual attraction were criticized from the Workers' Party (PT), which enraged the current head of state.

“I am outraged, the PT cuts out a statement and says it 'painted cool'. It is a disgrace. I have always fought pedophilia. That episode was nothing hidden, it's all recorded, I went with about 10 people to that place,” Bolsonaro said on Facebook.

Bolsonaro's visit to the house of the teenage Venezuelan immigrant girls in Sao Sebastiao, a poor neighborhood of Brasília, took place in 2020 when on Saturdays he went out to tour the capital on a motorcycle, breaking the quarantine in force at the time to show that it was necessary to work in person and without a mask despite the pandemic.

One of the Venezuelan women who witnessed the president's visit told UOL that what was in that house at that time was not a meeting of child prostitutes, but a meeting with immigrants organized by a Brazilian student of makeup and hairdressing to practice haircuts, application of false eyelashes and face painting. “My daughter and my nieces were there,” she argued.