By Danica Jorden, Upside Down World
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Brazil’s National Truth Commission (Commissão Nacional da Verdade, CNV) presented its final report on the history of the human rights violations committed by the military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985 on Wednesday, December 10, 2014. One of the chapters in the three volume, 4,400 page report was entitled, “Sexual Violence, Gender Violence and Violence Against Women and Children.”
Through its working group “The Dictatorship and Gender,” the CNV took testimony and detailed the use of rape and sexual violence as a weapon against those the dictatorship considered to be political and social activists or otherwise subversive. It describes how women, including nuns, were raped, how rapes were carried out in the presence of partners and children, and how sexual violence was also committed against victims who were ultimately killed. It also makes mention of the enduring scars, both physical and psychological, left upon those who were sexually violated. Lesbians, bisexuals, homosexuals, transsexuals and the transgendered were subject to particularly cruel violations of personal and human rights”.