According to data from the 2023 Public Security Yearbook, 74,930 cases of rape were reported in Brazil in 2022, the highest number ever recorded in the country’s history. The Yearbook also states that 88.7% of the victims were female and 56.8% were Black.

Black women in Brazil are demanding social justice and raising their voices against the high rates of violence that affect the lives of Black women, including sexual violence. On March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, they are taking to the streets with their demands and their official call for the second National March of Black Women, scheduled to take place in November 2025.

Marking 10 years since the first March, the second one will reflect a period of hope, says Rosália Lemos, general coordinator of Black Women’s Network of Rio de Janeiro, a VidaAfrolatina grantee partner. “Hopes have to be transformed into concrete public policies and this is a demand that we need to carry to the 2nd National March. It is necessary to create working groups that monitor the creation and implementation of these policies. You can’t march just to denounce.”

“Next year’s march reinaugurates another stage of the struggle of Black women against violence and for Good Living,” says Valdecir Nascimento, founder of Odara-Black Women’s Institute in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. The four lead organizers of the March are Articulation of Organizations of Black Brazilian Women, Network of Black Women of the Northeast, Fulanas Network: Black Women of the Brazilian Amazon and the National Forum of Black Women.

On November 18, 2015, approximately 100,000 Black women took to the streets of Brazil’s capital city of Brasilia to march against racism and violence and to march for Good Living. The intention is to surpass that number in 2025 with 1 million women participants.

Among the main impacts of the first March has been the growth of Black women’s organizations in all regions of the country and the strengthening of older ones. Deepening ties with Black women from other Latin American countries is also expected at this time, with the aim of strengthening the movement of Black women in the Diaspora. “Lélia Gonzalez already mentioned the importance of this in the 1980s. It is necessary to form ties with Afro-Latina women,” says Rosália, who sees the difference in languages as a problem that needs to be resolved. “As long as we have the language barrier, it will be difficult to advance integrated actions.”

The second March is expected to consolidate and expand debates around the concept of reparations, for centuries of human rights violations against the Black population, and to strengthen agendas and strategies for reparations models applicable to the reality of Brazilian context.

Throughout March 2024, known as March of Struggle, a collective agenda with 135 activities of the Black women’s movement in Brazil is taking place nationwide. This year, March of Struggle’s theme is “Toward the Black Women’s March 2025.” It serves as a platform to prepare for the second National March of Black Women.

Black Women’s Network of Rio de Janeiro is spearheading one of the activities on the agenda. On March 21, they are hosting a photographic exhibition called “Memories of the March of Black Women (2015),” in the city of Nilópolis.

“By including photos with captions, we are giving young people the possibility of experiencing that moment that happened in the past,” says Rosália. “This is the commitment of older generations, bringing the past to share experiences”. The goal is to promote a historical recollection in order to strengthen and train youth in the present.

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