On 14 March 2018, Marielle Franco, a Rio de Janeiro councillor, human rights defender and particularly for the rights of black women and sexual diversities, was assassinated. After five years, there are no responses, no perpetrators, no justice.
As an elected councillor in 2016, the year in which she was running for the first time in the electoral dispute as a candidate for the “Change is Possible” coalition, Marielle Franco took on the investigation of violence against women, the defence of abortion in cases not provided for by law, the increase of women’s participation in politics and, if that were not enough, the task of investigating the murders committed by the police in Rio de Janeiro. It is this last task that is presumed to be the cause of Franco’s assassination. Anderson, the driver assigned to the councillor, was also killed in the attack.
After these murders and with the aim of achieving justice and to continue with the struggles and causes that she always defended, her family created the Marielle Franco Institute, which every year, starting in 2019, commemorates this day and organises multiple cultural and political activities to denounce impunity, both for Marielle and Anderson, as well as for the defenders who have been murdered in Brazil. This year, the Institute has called for a March for Marielle, inviting people and collectives from all over the country to develop activities of commemoration and denunciation.
It is worth noting that, during her political action as a councillor, Marielle presented legislative proposals to guarantee the rights of women, Negroes, marginalised and LGBTQ+ populations, setting a standard of feminist, anti-racist and non-discriminatory political practice. Marielle’s legacy is remembered in Brazil and in our continent.
