Insecurity and violence in Brazil are among the main reasons that led Brazilians who arrived in Portugal in recent years to leave their country, adding to political, economic and social reasons, according to immigrant associations.
No doubt that the violence in Brazil is one of the main reasons that lead Brazilians to want to move to another countrywith Portugal (…) as a preferred destination”, Alexandra Gomide, president of the Luso-Brazilian Sociocultural Association for the Support of Integration in Portugal (UAI), based in Braga, told Lusa.
Almost 700 thousand foreigners live in Portugal and 30% are Brazilian
For this person in charge, the direct impact of this factor on the decision to emigrate can be seen from the beginning by the type of community that has arrived in Portugal, made up of “A lot of families”.
“It’s the parents trying to get their kids into a safer environment,” he said.
Currently we see more entire families moving than individual people in search of a better life, the initial factor of immigration”, he reinforced.
But also because “the vast majority” of Brazilian immigrants who have arrived at the UAI in recent years “refer to this”, that is, they say that “they want to take their children to a safer environment”he is stressed.
For this reason, Alexandra Gomide places violence “in the first place” in the list of the most important factors in the decision to emigrate of Brazilians who have arrived in Portugal in recent years.
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Despite considering that this decision always ends up being the result of “a sum of factors”where he Political instability “exhausting” in Brazil and the looking for a better job and better living conditions they are also weighting factors.
Portugal, “in addition to offering security, can offer good education and a good health system,” he says.
“The country also offers other facilities, since it is a Portuguese-speaking country and a destination where the process of obtaining documents and citizenship can be faster,” he added.
The UAI is serving “an average of 80 new families per month,” he said.
Another indicator that, in the opinion of Alexandra Gomide, reveals that the insecurity and violence currently experienced in Brazil have an important weight in the decisions to emigrate is that “The big cities (in Brazil) are the ones that lose the most Brazilians”.
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The vast majority come from the big cities, from Rio de Janeiro, many, at least here in Braga (…)”, he added.
Pointing out, however, that this does not mean that many Brazilians do not come to Portugal from small towns: “Because, in fact, we live in a context in Brazil in which the violence is widespread”, he is stressed.
“Sometimes people live in the countryside, they don’t even deal so much with these situations, but the news shows so many negative things, so many bad things that fear has already set in. That is why sometimes the person has not even experienced (the violence) in a real context, but is afraid that it will happen, ”he added.
When he emigrated to Portugal six years ago, insecurity and violence were already “something that bothered him” and that Brazilians learned to deal with, he recalled.
There are certain situations that make sense to us, hugging the bag, not using the cell phone in the street. (…) We live in a extremely large voltage over there. But it becomes normal,” she confessed. “Here we learn to live free,” she concluded.
For the president of the Casa do Brasil de Lisboa, Cyntia de Paula, insecurity and violence in that Latin American country is just one of several factors that currently weigh on the decision of Brazilians to emigrate, but it is not even the most relevant for Some. groups
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“The question of Recent emigration (of Brazilians) is multifaceted“, because “there are many reasons why people choose to emigrate”, he said.
In your opinion, “It is closely linked to the economic and political issue”the former largely due to the rising inflationthat began to be felt in Brazil much earlier than in Portugal, and the second by speech of the current government, headed by Jair Bolsonarowith which people do not identify, or which generates safety fears for ethnic or racial minorities or even for certain communities such as LGBT, or even activists.
Jair Bolsonaro’s executive “does not have a clear discourse against any form of violence” and “There is no discourse of equality, of defense of human rights, of respect for minorities”, currently in Brazil, justified. On the contrary, the speech of the Brazilian executive is even, at times, “xenophobic and homophobic”being able to “encourage discrimination and the violence”, he considered.
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This means that there is “increased demand for these groups, due to political unrest and a political struggle for protection” by Portugal.
On the other hand, he pointed out, “Brazil is immense and the relationship with violence is different, depending on the city where the Brazilian immigrant comes from (…),” he said, adding that “in small towns this issue is perceived in a different way. different way”, different from those who come from the big cities”, he stressed.
Thus, he considered that it is “important”, when speaking of the motivations of Brazilians to emigrate, “to think of Brazil in continental terms and not as a single block of people, with all the same economic and social realities”, because the country “is very different from one place to another” and currently “people come to Portugal from anywhere in Brazil”.
Thus, he concluded: “Of course some people and some groups” come because of the issue of insecurity and violence, “especially from the big cities” where it is felt more. “But people don’t just come from these cities.”
Therefore, this reason “can influence, yes, in some migratory processes, but the motivations are very varied” for Brazilian immigrants, from wanting to come to study, or work, in search of better living conditions, or even wanting to undertake, stressed. . .
Source: Observadora
