In recent months, we have followed the large number of cases of violence against women that have come to light, and we have been faced with an increasingly difficult scenario that deserves everyone’s attention. In 2025 alone, 12 women were victims of violence every 24 hours, a figure 9% higher than the previous year, according to the report “Elas Vivem: a urgência da vida” (They Live: the urgency of life), produced by the Rede de Observatórios da Segurança (Security Observatories Network).

Debates and the search for solutions to combat violence have become more necessary every day, and this conversation should begin in childhood, when girls and, above all, boys are in the process of developing and learning cultural values and behaviors. With a deeply rooted cultural structure, often associated with the concept of toxic masculinity, which runs through different spaces in society and gains even more strength on the internet, exposure to violent speech and behavior makes boys feel obliged to reproduce it in order to fit into this environment of hatred toward women.

We see this, for example, on social media, with movements such as the “red pill,” which fuel misogyny. “We already live in a patriarchal society shaped by structural sexism, and groups like these normalize hatred of women, helping to fuel psychological, digital and physical violence,” says Noaly Avenoso, a psychologist at Instituto C.

With this exposure to the digital environment and to unregulated content comes the urgent need to collectively create safer and less prejudiced environments for children. Recently, the Digital ECA (Statute of Children and Adolescents in the digital environment) was regulated, the first step toward making the internet safer for young people.

What is the Digital ECA and why is it important in helping to combat misogyny?

Approximately 95% of children aged 9 to 17 use the internet, and there is no escaping it: the digital world is part of the lives of both adults and children, but we need to enter it consciously and responsibly. Rodrigo Nejm, a psychologist and digital education specialist at Instituto Alana, explains what the internet is for a child: “they use it to form their identity, to make friends, to study, and even to talk to their own family members. So it’s one more environment they spend time in every day.”

According to the specialist, the Digital ECA changes the entire architecture of the online environment so that platforms are prepared, with minimum safety and privacy conditions, to receive children. The law is also a tool that gives parents and caregivers more control over what children and adolescents consume.

With the regulation, children now have access only to content appropriate for their age. As Rodrigo points out, what children and adolescents consume has a great influence on their lives. “When they watch videos and influencers, they’re not just consuming entertainment. They’re also consuming cultural and social values. They’re also learning how to behave,” he stresses.

In this way, the Digital ECA can be a strong pillar in blocking misogynistic content that reinforces sexism in childhood. One example is restricting access to pornographic content, which, when accessed by children over time, especially boys, can produce a type of masculinity that sexualizes women and normalizes violence.

We need to guide and strengthen education

With frequent exposure to violent and sexist content, parents, caregivers and people who work with children may notice inappropriate behavior by boys toward girls. That is why it is necessary to act before these attitudes start to harm them as citizens.

For Rodrigo, from Instituto Alana, families and schools need to work on digital education together with sex education, which helps children understand the boundaries of their own bodies and of other people’s bodies. “We need to know about and follow children’s digital lives, but also provide this sex education, which isn’t just about sex; it’s about care and respect,” he explains.

Noaly says that it is in everyday life that parents and caregivers can educate in a less prejudiced way, through simple attitudes and by seeking knowledge. She stresses the importance of not reproducing speech and behavior that perpetuate structural sexism, seeking information on the subject and correcting actions and words on the spot.

The internet is not just a villain; it can be an ally

Just as we can find inappropriate content in the digital world, the internet can also offer children a space for learning. Children’s channels with information, cartoons or songs can open discussions about topics that are part of this stage of life, helping parents and caregivers have difficult conversations in a more accessible way.

“Families have in the internet an important place of learning, which can be preserved as a space for participation, where children and adolescents themselves can also take part and have access to quality information,” explains Rodrigo.

Now, it is up to all of us to monitor and ensure that children are safe online, and that the Digital ECA becomes like the Consumer Protection Code, always present in Brazilians’ minds. Caring for childhoods and educating boys against gender-based violence is a collective responsibility: “If, throughout childhood, children are raised to fight for the end of structural sexism, we will have lower rates of violence against women and psychologically healthier men,” says Noaly.

During Women’s Month, we talk a lot about women’s strength, but it is important to remember that they are also the ones who carry the responsibility of taking care of everything, often without a support network. This care, whether for children, a family member or household chores, takes up a great deal of women’s time, as they make up the majority of those responsible for these activities.

In 2022 alone, women spent almost twice as many hours per week as men on unpaid domestic and care work. And there is an aggravating factor: the lower their income, the more time they devote to this work. These figures were released by DataCuidados and reveal the overload women carry and the gender inequality involved.

In this context, the National Care Policy was created in 2024, with the aim of recognizing care as essential work for the sustainability of life, the economy and society itself. The goal is to make visible what has historically been treated as women’s private responsibility and to seek solutions to reduce this overload.

The Policy, established by Law No. 15,069, was developed with the participation of government bodies from different areas and strong influence from civil society organizations that, like Instituto C, see up close how much care has consumed women’s lives. It guarantees everyone the right to care (understood as the right to care for others, to be cared for and to self-care) and determines that the State must implement the Policy gradually and progressively through a National Care Plan, called Brasil que Cuida (Caring Brazil).

The impact of the care overload

Also according to data from the 2022 Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD-C), over the course of the year, Black women spend around 72.8 more hours on care than white women. This shows how much race, in addition to gender, still directly affects the lives of those dedicated to caregiving.

Just by looking at the number of hours women devote to care, it is already possible to infer that they cannot reconcile this routine with paid work. This lack of time also affects the course of women’s lives, reducing their chances of completing their education and preventing self-care, leisure and participation in public life, among many other areas.

How does the Policy work in practice?

Brasil que Cuida is the instrument for implementing the National Care Policy, promoting policies, services and programs so that the law is actually put into practice across different sectors. The goal is to reduce inequalities of gender, race, class, age, territory and disability in care work, and to promote the recognition and appreciation of care as essential work.

Even before the law, the country already had public care policies for the population, whether through daycare centers, health services or shelter programs. The problem is that they were built in a fragmented way, each within its own specific area.

Now, the challenge is to integrate them, as Nayara Oliveira, IC’s institutional development coordinator, explains: “They were not originally designed as part of a structured care policy. That is why they often operate in a disconnected way and still cannot fully reach everyone who needs support in their daily lives.”

According to the plan released by the Federal Government, the investment planned for 2024 to 2027 is organized into five main pillars:

1. Guaranteeing rights and promoting policies for those who need care and for those who provide unpaid care;
2. Reconciling paid work, education and family care needs;
3. Decent work for domestic workers and paid care workers;
4. Recognizing and valuing care work in its many forms and driving cultural change toward a fairer social organization of care;
5. Governance and management of the National Care Plan.

Among the projects scheduled to take place by next year — some of which have already begun — are public laundries to reduce the domestic workload, with community spaces integrated with cultural and training activities; cuidotecas, spaces for welcoming and caring for children at universities, federal institutes and municipalities; places in daycare centers, preschools and full-time schools for families headed by women; and the Mulheres Mil + Cuidados program, which offers professional training in care for women in vulnerable situations, with a focus on domestic workers and caregivers.

By redistributing care among the State, families and society, these policies help address the gender, race and class inequalities present in the social organization of care,” says Nayara.

Why is care even in our name?

At Instituto C, we serve many families that are mostly headed by women, who are also the main providers of care, and we seek to support them in accessing rights, public services and support networks in their territories. In this way, we recognize that our work is also part of the field of care policies.

For Nayara, this work also serves as a bridge to help families live with more dignity. “By strengthening these caregivers and expanding their access to rights, Instituto C also helps them have better conditions to carry out their protective and caregiving role with dignity, while also putting self-care on the agenda as a right addressed within the policy,” she explains.

Talking about care policies is a duty of society as a whole, and it cannot be the responsibility of families alone, but also of the government. Strengthening those who provide care is also a way of ensuring the development and protection of those who receive it.