Local Gender Policies in Brazil

The purpose of this paper is to verify whether and in which degree Brazilian’s local policies are oriented toward strategic or practical gender needs. In order to achieve that I analyzed data on Brazilian local gender policies from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics’ Survey of Basic Municipal Information 2009, the main findings of this analysis were: in 4,522 (81.3%) out of the 5,564 Brazilian municipalities there were not any gender unit. Only in 1,042 (18.7%) municipalities there was a gender unit. Only 3.4% of them have designed a plan and 6.8% have a budget. Around 7% of the municipalities implemented policies that address violence against women. Among these initiatives were shelters and domestic violence resource center. Policies were also implemented in education, health, or work. Some programs are developed in cooperation with the government at the national or state level, NGOs, religious institutions and worker’s organizations. Among these, NGOs and religious institutions stand out. The greater the municipality’s population size, the greater the likelihood of the existence of a gender unit. Gender policies were different across the Brazilian states as well. For instance, in Roraima, a state in the Northern Region, there was not any municipality with policies addressing women. It has been observed as well whether Mayors’ characteristics were associated with the existence of gender policies in the municipalities.


Introduction
As national policies for decentralization had been implemented in Brazil, subnational governments have started to play a more central role in improving the lives of their citizens. The transfer of decisions as well as of resource allocations to the local level increased the capability of municipal governments to provide services and improve the quality of their citizens' lives. In this realm, gender activists and policy makers started thinking and proposing policies targeted to women.
Policies targeted to women can be oriented to strategic or practical gender needs. Policies oriented toward strategic gender needs emerge from the recognition of women's subordination to men and are thought to overcome gender inequality, for instance, in employment and education as well as in political representation. Policies oriented toward practical gender needs do not challenge traditional gender roles; they are mainly concerned with improving low-income women's living conditions. [1,2] The purpose of this research, supported by Brazilian Special Secretariat for Women's Policies was to verify whether Brazilian's local gender policies are oriented toward strategic or practical gender needs. A gender policy is strategic inasmuch as it focuses on overcoming the imbalance of power between women and men. A gender policy is practical when it focuses on women's immediate and specific needs such as skilling, health assistance, and violence support. My source of data was the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics' Survey of Basic Municipal Information 2009.

Gender Units
In order to ensure the gender policies implementation, gender units have been created in some Brazilian municipalities. These municipalities were 1,042 (18.7%). In 4,522 (81.3%) of the Brazilian municipalities there weren't any gender unit. Hence, the following analysis comprehends exclusively 18.7% of the Brazilian municipalities. The gender units have been categorized in the Survey as follows: (a) women's secretariat; (b) shared secretariat; (c) sector subordinated to a secretariat; (d) sector subordinated to the Mayor; and (e) independent. Their distribution can be seen in the table below: The ranking of these gender units according to their order of importance in the local government structure would be: firstly, women's secretariat; secondly, shared secretariat; thirdly, sector subordinated to the Mayor; fourthly, sector subordinated to a secretariat; and lastly, independent. 'Sector subordinated to a secretariat' is by far the most prevalent category (70.6%). The other categories' proportions are much lower than this one: 'Sector subordinated to the Mayor' 13.6%; 'shared secretariat' 8.7%; 'Women's secretariat' 6.5%; and 'Independent' 0.5% 1 . As can be seen, 70.6% of the gender units were at a lower position while only 6.5% of them were at a higher position within the local government structure. It's evidenced that gender issues were not priority for almost ¾ of the municipalities with gender units.
Although most of the Brazilian gender units were subordinated to a Secretariat, it was not investigated in the Survey under which one they were. However, it is informed that "Even though it is not raised the secretariat to which the sector is subordinated to, it is known that, in the majority of the cases, gender policies are treated in the realm of the secretariats of social assistance." [3] An issue that emerges from the statement above, is whether around 70% of the gender units were subordinated to a secretariat of social assistance there is a high likelihood that those policies have as rationale the social assistance values rather than feminist values.
In the table below it is presented, by category of gender unit, the percentages of municipalities with plan and budget that have programs for training municipality staff who execute policies 2 , where there are domestic violence resource center, shelter and women's policies management council. If the gender units could be of different kinds, their working conditions and accomplishments must be different as well. better results is women's secretariat, followed by shared secretariat and by sector subordinated to the Mayor. The sector subordinated to a secretariat is the one that presents the worst results facing difficulties for the implementation of gender policies. Unfortunately that is the prevalent category, under which it is found almost ¾ of the Brazilian municipalities with gender unit.

Gender Policies
According to the Survey's perspective, gender policies comprehend: plan; budget; municipality staff training on gender issues; articulation with other municipal units for the incorporation of gender issues in the formulation and implementation of policies in other areas such as education and health; execution of policies and programs in the following areas: education, work, violence, health, culture and politics; Domestic Violence Resource Center; Shelters; Women's Policies Management Council; cooperation and articulation with federal, state and municipal entities, NGOs, private institutions, international organisms, religious entities and workers organizations.
In the table below it is presented the percentages of municipalities with gender units distributed by gender policy types and aspects enumerated above. A gender unit should have, to begin with, a plan to guide its action as well as a budget to realize what has been planned. In respect to the Plan, only 14.2% of the municipalities have a written Plan. Hence, in practice, local gender policies in more than 80% of the municipalities are not previously designed so that the results achieved couldn't be evaluated nor monitored. Around 64% of the gender units do not have their own budget, thereby weakening their autonomy and limiting their activities.
Articulation is the most developed activity (76.5%). Articulation can be understood as a formal agreement for the incorporation of gender issues throughout the local government secretariats. If the gender units have not been that successful with their own policies and programs, how could they negotiate for the incorporation of gender issues in other sectors of local government?
Secondly, it is execution of policies and programs. In the Survey it is asked whether the municipality executes or not a policy. According to the interpretation of the respondent, a policy execution can mean isolated actions as well as the implementation of programs. Thirdly, training which is being implemented in 35.9% of the municipalities. This figure shows that a significant part (64%) of the gender unities is not preparing the municipality staff to deal with gender issues.
According to the Survey there are Women's Policies Management Councils in 326 (31.3%) municipalities; Domestic Violence Resource Centers in 24.9% of the municipalities. There are Shelters in 118 (11.3%) of the municipalities. Out of these Shelters, 75 (7.2%) have confidential address and 43 (4.1%) do not have a confidential address. What means that around 37% of the shelters do not have a confidential address what is a negation of the very concept of women's shelters. [4] It was observed that in 26 (2.5%) municipalities, although it has been informed that there existed gender units, they were not executing any sort of policy at all. Others 261 (25%) out of these 1,042 municipalities, conducted only and exclusively one policy: only articulation -134 municipalities (12.86%); only execution of policies -69 municipalities (6.62%); only training -48 municipalities (4.61%); only Women's Policies Management Council -5 (0.48%); only Shelter -3 (0.29%); only Domestic Violence Resource Center -2 (0.19%).

Women's Policies Plan
As stated by the SPM [5] Women's Policies Plan is a tool devised to guide the implementation of policies for women in the municipality. It should present a strategy of action, regarding time, resources and the results to be achieved. Without a Women's Policies Plan, there could not exist a clear direction to follow as well as a basis for monitoring and evaluation.
In the table below, the percentages of the municipalities that have Women's Policies Plan are presented by policy aspect. There is a remarkable difference between the percentages of municipalities that executes policies, programs and services and the percentages of municipalities that executes these policies based on a Plan. This shows that the policies have been mostly executed based on voluntarism without a plan to guide their actions.

Budget for the Women's Policies
It is assumed here that having a budget is a sine qua non condition for the implementation of policies. For this reason it is analyzed the association between the existence of budget and gender policies implemented. Only 378 (36.3%) out of the Brazilian municipalities with gender units have a budget for the development of their activities. This can mean that the policies executed are so modest that there is no need for a budget to implement them.
In the table below it is showed the percentages of municipalities which have a budget according to policy aspect. The percentages of gender units that develop activities with their own financial resources are low. So, they have to count upon transferred resources to do their jobs, or count upon none resources at all. Gender units with own budget could freely determine what to do. This fact gives rise to doubt about their effectiveness. This data indicates that what have been declared as policies executed could in fact be isolated actions. As in the Survey it is asked only if the policies are realized or not, we cannot know about the quality and the comprehensiveness of these policies.

Training of Municipality Staff
In the Survey it is simply asked whether the municipality staff is trained and skilled to deal with gender issues. It is not asked any further information such as training frequency and duration. Training can be targeted towards teachers and health professionals as well as Resource Centers and Shelters' employees. Training is of great importance in order to prepare them to detect violence situations as well as teach them to deal with these situations. So, this is a must have program for those municipalities with gender units. The municipalities that have a gender unit and develop training programs are 35.9%. This low percentage indicates that to training is not being given the priority it should have as stated by gender policy experts. [6]

Articulation for the Incorporation of Gender Issues by Other Local Government Units
In the Survey it is asked whether the gender unit articulates with other local government sectors for the incorporation of 4 Local Gender Policies in Brazil gender issues in their activities. The sectors listed are: education, work, violence, health, culture and politics. Articulation is the activity with the higher percentage of municipalities developing it. In respect to the areas, the majority articulates with health and education sectors (more than 80%).

Execution of Policies and Programs for the Promotion of Gender Equality and Women's Autonomy
In the Survey it is asked whether gender units execute policies for the promotion of the gender equality or women's autonomy. In the case of an affirmative answer it is asked in which sector these policies are executed, which could be: education, work, violence, health, culture and politics. Out of the 1,042 municipalities with gender units, 431 (41.4%) execute gender policies in the area of violence; 422 (40.5%) in the area of work; 413 (39.6%) in the area of health; 408 (39.2%) in the area of education; 309 (29.7%) in the area of culture; 211 (20.2%) in the area of politics. It is informed only whether the policies exist or not. So it is not possible to assess the results achieved by these policies.

The Domestic Violence Resource Center
There are Domestic Violence Resource Center in 259 (24.9%) out of the Brazilian Municipalities where there are a gender unit. Their objectives are to offer psychological, social, and legal counseling as well as give orientation and information for women living with violence. [7] In the Survey it is asked whether the Domestic Violence Resource Centers offer the following activities: social counseling by social worker, psychological and legal counseling, cultural and educative as well as training activities, and whether the Center connect women to programs of income transfer and/or skilling.
Psychologists and social assistants are key personnel in the Resource Centers; important as well it is the provision of legal counseling; 87% offer psychological counseling; 85% offer counseling with social worker, 71% offer legal counseling; and 63% of them connect to income transfer programs.

The Shelters
The shelters have to have a confidential address in order to guarantee the safety of women living with violence as well as their children. They should offer social, psychological, legal, and medical assistance. [4] However, some municipalities have Shelters whose addresses are not confidential. Considering the ones which have and have not confidential addresses, they are 118 (11.3% of the municipalities with gender unit). Out of these, 75 (7.22%) have confidential addresses and 43 (4.1%) do not have confidential address.
The objectives of the Shelters are:  To offer social, psychological, legal, and medical assistance to women and their children.  To promote their social insertion through skilling and income. Taking into consideration these objectives, it has been analyzed the activities developed in the Brazilian Shelters, as follows.

The Shelters' Activities
In the Survey it is asked whether the Shelter implement the following activities: psychological, social, legal, and medical assistance, cultural and educative activities. It is asked as well whether they connect these women to income transfer programs and/or skilling. (a). The shelters with confidential address' activities There are 75 municipalities with confidential address shelters. Among these, more than 90% offer social counseling by social workers; 90% offer psychological counseling; 84% offer legal counseling; 82.7% offer medical assistance; 53% offer skilling courses and 77% connect the sheltered women to income transfer programs and/or skilling. In respect to the children, 72% were enrolled in school. Among these 75 shelters, two do not offer any of the activities mentioned above.
As it could be seen, the majority of these shelters develop the activities they are supposed to. However, offering skilling courses for women living with violence that is of remarkable importance as a way for the achievement of autonomy and economic independence is developed only for half of these shelters. (b). The shelters without confidential addresses' activities There are 43 municipalities whose shelters do not have confidential address. Among these, 51% offer social counseling by social worker; 49% offer psychological counseling; 39.5% offer medical assistance; 32.5% offer legal counseling; 14% offer skilling courses; 32.5% connect the sheltered women to income transfer programs and/or skilling. In respect to children, 37% are enrolled in school. Among these 43 shelters, 15 do not offer any of the activities mentioned above.
These figures show a significant difference between the shelters with confidential address and the ones without confidential address. Besides not offering to the sheltered women and their children the safety of a confidential address, great part of them does not offer any activity. Only half of them have social and psychological counseling. This means that when the women get to the shelter they are not received by specialized professionals as it should be.

Women's Policies Management Council
In 326 (31.3%) out of the 1,042 municipalities that have a gender unit there were Women's Policies Management Council. These Councils are composed by municipal governments as well as civil society representatives. They are very important gender policies proposing and monitoring tools. This figure shows that in more than 70% of the municipalities the policies are not being monitored by women's organizations or other civil society organization.

Character of the Women's Policies Management Council
A same Municipal Women's Policies Management Council can have various attributions (consultative, deliberative, inspection, normative). Being consultative means analyzing and suggesting actions or policies. Being deliberative means have the power to take decisions with regard to the implementation of policies and/or the administration of resources. Inspection means inspect the implementation of policies and/or the administration of resources. Being normative means establishing norms for the policies and/or the administration of resources. [3] Almost 80% of the Councils are deliberative what means that great part of them have power to take decisions in respect to policies and programs as well as budget. Around 65% of them inspect policies, programs and budget. Less than half of them are normative.
In the Survey it is asked to which governmental unit the Council is subordinated to. The options presented are: social assistance, gender unit or human rights. The majority of them (62.9%) are in the first option, 17.8% in the second option and 1.5% in the third one 3 . Surprisingly, less than 20% of the Councils were working in coordination with a gender unit. One possible explanation is the fact that the majority of gender units are probably subordinated to a Social Assistance Secretariat.

Gender Units Partnerships with Governmental and Non-governmental Agencies
Another question asked in the Survey is whether the municipality develops a program, project or action in partnership with federal, state and municipal entities, NGOs, private institutions, international organisms, religious entities and workers organizations.
3The others 17.8% are under 'none' or 'non-specified' categories. The partnerships done by gender units were mainly with municipal entities as well as with state and federal entities. It is worthy of note the representativeness of NGOs and religious entities. Feminist NGOs since Brazilian's redemocratization have cooperated with local governments in the design and implementation of gender policies. Feminist NGOs have since as well established mechanisms to evaluate and monitoring these policies. As for religious entities the partnership might be with Women's Pastoral Catholic Church or evangelical churches whose participation in Brazilian politics have been increasing in the last decades.

Gender Units Distributed by Brazilian Municipalities' Population Size
Brazilian municipalities have been distributed according to their population size, which are: micro (up to 10 thousands inhabitants); small (from 10.001 up to 50 thousands inhabitants); medium (from 50.001 up to 100 thousands inhabitants); and large (with more than 100 thousands inhabitants). The percentages of municipalities under each category are as follows: 47.85% are micro; 41.78% are small; 5.59% are medium; and 4.78% are large. The differences according to the municipalities' population size are remarkable. Almost 90% of the micro ones do not have any gender unit. However, in the large ones the percentage of municipalities without a gender unit is superior to 30%. Hence, the higher the municipality's population size, the higher the likelihood of having gender policies. For all the analyzed items, the higher the municipality population the higher the likelihood of having plan, budget, execution of policies, training and skilling, Council, Shelter and Domestic Violence Resource Center.
In respect to the Shelters, in the Survey it is informed whether the Shelter have or not confidential address. In the Table above, it has been included exclusively the proportions of Shelters with confidential address. Considering the Shelters that have not confidential address, we have the following distributions: 1.8% in the micro, 2.6% in the small, 6% in the medium and 7.7% in the large ones. In micro and small municipalities and even in the medium ones, the percentages of Shelters without confidential address are higher than the ones with confidential address; in the large ones the proportion of shelters with confidential address is much higher. As expected, in micro and small municipalities it is more difficulty keeping an address confidential.

Gender Units Distributed by Brazilian Regions
The purpose of this analysis is to verify if there are regional differences in respect to gender unit's types. In the Table below the municipalities were distributed according to the type of gender unit by Region. The municipalities that do not have any gender unit were around 80% in almost all Brazilian Regions, with the exception of the Northeast, where this proportion is below the 80%. Women's secretariat has the smallest proportion in the Central-West Region and the highest proportion in the Northeast Region. Shared secretariat presents the smallest proportion in the Southeast and the highest proportion in the Central-West Region. Sector subordinated to the Mayor has the smallest proportion in the Northeast and the highest proportion in the South. Sector subordinated to a secretariat has the smallest proportion in the North and the highest proportion in the Northeast Region.
For all the items analyzed, there are not significant differences amongst the Regions. However it can be pointed out that the Region with the highest percentage of municipalities with plan, budget, execution of policies, training and skilling is the Northeast; with Councils, North; with Shelters, South; and with Domestic Violence Resource Center, Central-West.

Gender Units Distributed by Brazilian States
The purpose of this analysis is to verify whether there are differences in respect to the gender units amongst the Brazilian states. Considering the whole Brazilian municipalities, the category with the highest percentage is 'Sector subordinated to a secretariat'. However there are three states that present a different pattern: in Acre and in Amapá, the category with the highest percentage of municipalities is 'Sector subordinated to the Mayor'; in Mato Grosso do Sul the categories with the highest proportion of municipalities are 'shared secretariat' and 'Sector subordinated to a secretariat'. There are not Women's secretariats in the following states: Acre, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Mato Grosso, Paraíba and Sergipe.
There is not any municipality with gender unit in Roraima as well as in Amapá.

Analysis of Local Gender Units by Mayors' Political Parties
In this analysis it is being taken into account exclusively the three major Brazilian political parties which are Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), both right-wing parties and Workers' Party (PT), centre-left wing party. As could be seen in the table above, there is a difference among the political parties. There are gender units in 27.5% of the municipalities headed by a mayor from PT; in 15% of the municipalities headed by mayors from PSDB; in 18.6% of the municipalities headed by a PMDB mayor. This means a difference of 12.5 percentual points between PT and PSDB and of 9 percentual points between PT and PMDB.

Analysis of Local Gender Units by Mayors' Socio-demographic Characteristics
The purpose of this analysis is to verify whether the socio-demographic characteristics of the mayors, such as gender and educational level influence upon the existence of gender units 4 .

Gender of the Mayors
A question worthy to be asked is whether the female mayors would be more sensitized to gender issues than the male mayors. According to the figures showed below, the gender of the mayor does not exert any influence on the existence of gender units, nor in the categories of gender units, as could be seen in the Table below.

Educational Level of The Mayors
In this section it is verified whether there are differences in gender policies in respect to the mayors' educational level.
Those percentages above indicate that the Mayor's educational level influence upon the existence of a gender unit in the municipality. The higher their educational level, the greater the possibility of having a gender unit in the municipality. 4I distributed the mayors by age groups as well but I didn't find any significantly difference among them.  As stated at the beginning of this paper, its purpose was to verify whether Brazilian's local gender policies were oriented towards women's strategic or practical needs. After the analysis of the Survey's data, I reached the conclusion that they were not concerned with fighting against gender inequality. And worth, even women's practical needs were not being completely met because of the limits they face, such as budget and plan's absence, lack of autonomy as well as the restrict range of services and equipment they have to offer