To mark World Day of Social Justice, we look back at Mission’s interview with councilwoman Mônica Benício, who, following the assassination of her partner, dedicated her life to making Brazil a safer, fairer place.
On a wall in Rio de Janeiro is a mural of Marielle Franco in a Wonder Woman costume. The mural reflects how many people in Brazil (bar the political establishment) saw the 38-year-old Black lesbian activist and city councillor.
On March 14, 2018, on her way home after giving a speech about Black women reclaiming power, two assassins targeted Franco, killing her and her driver and injuring her personal assistant. The assassination occurred—perhaps not coincidentally—the day after Franco tweeted to condemn Brazil’s epidemic of police brutality. “Another killing of a young man which could end up on the PM [military police] tally. Matheus Melo was leaving church. How many more will have to die before this war ends?” she wrote to her 50,000 followers.
Since Franco’s passing, her fiancée, Mônica Benício, has taken it upon herself to figuratively don the Wonder Woman costume and all it represents. Franco’s murder galvanized Benício, an architect by trade, toward activism, and in November 2020, she won a seat on Rio’s city council, becoming the first out lesbian woman elected to the post.
When I speak with Benício via a translator over Zoom in early September, she’s in Rio, sitting in what I assume is her office at the city council. A corporate placard reading her name is secured to the door, and various amateur artworks—perhaps made by her supporters—are pinned to the wall behind her.
I ask Benício if, leading up to Franco’s death, Franco felt she had a target on her back. “There was no previous threat that I had knowledge of. But because Marielle was a Black woman, an LGBTQ+ fighter, and a defender, and because of her political position, there was hostility, and this was escalating when she became prominent through her work on the city council,” Benício says.
Following Franco’s death, rumors swirled that the political establishment—specifically, Jair Bolsonaro himself (Brazil’s reactionary right-wing president)—was responsible for Franco’s murder. Benício, however, is reluctant to place blame with the president: “At this point in the investigation, there’s nothing objective that leads directly to Bolsonaro or his family. I know the media published some things saying that the person charged had a house in the same neighborhood as the president, that there was this proximity between them. But I have to take responsibility and tell you that, [regarding] the investigations run by the police and the prosecutors, there is nothing that leads directly to that.”
Evidence does suggest, however, that Benício harbors suspicions about the government’s involvement in Franco’s death, as she recently appealed “for support from other countries to denounce the Brazilian state.” The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights responded by declaring that should something happen to Benício in Brazil, the organization would categorize it as a diplomatic incident. “The bigger my fight grows, the more vulnerable I become,” says Benício, describing the declaration as “an additional pressure on the Brazilian state to respond to who killed Marielle.”
Although she’s reluctant to blame Bolsonaro for her fiancée’s death, Benício openly condemns the president’s political ideology (Bolsonaro is a supporter of far-right policies and once described himself as “proudly homophobic”), describing his 2018 victory as “a terrible thing” for Brazil. Just as the term “Trumpism” came to denote Trump supporters’ wider doctrine, “Bolsonarismo” represents the philosophy of those who support Bolsonaro. Benício worries that although former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may have a chance at defeating Bolsonaro in 2022, it won’t be enough to conquer the country’s broader political sentiment. “Lula would be the person to defeat Jair Bolsonaro the person, but understand that Lula is not enough to defeat Bolsonarismo,” she says. “We need a lot more than just one person.”
Benício is critical of the police’s power in Brazil, reeling off examples of police brutality with disconcerting ease. She starts with her fiancée, then goes on to list Luana Barbosa dos Reis—a 34-year-old Black lesbian who was beaten to death by police on her way to pick up her son from school (one of the killings that led the U.N. to call for the end of impunity for police violence against Black people)—and Amarildo de Souza, a 43-year-old bricklayer who was tortured and killed by one of the Pacifying Police Units put in place to mitigate crime in the country’s favelas. “The blood is Black,” she says. “What isn’t covered in the media is a lot more. It’s very different when a policeman approaches a white man than a Black man.”
But it’s not just the police. A discrepancy in funding—especially when it comes to the favelas, where 67 percent of the residents are Black—also impedes safety. “There’s more access to culture and education, and more public investment, outside of the favelas. Inside the favelas, there is a lack of information and investment, which results in a more intensified culture of pressure against women, Black people, and the LGBTQ+ community. Those people are more vulnerable,” Benício says. “We are talking about a system of oppression that reflects a lot more strongly inside the favelas. It is much more difficult to walk in the streets of a favela than outside.”
Benício draws a stark contrast between the standard of living in the favelas versus Leblon, an affluent area in Rio’s South Zone, where “the streets are clear, there are a lot of lights, and the policemen are pretty much educated and informed to do their work.”
When it comes to her political doctrine, equality lies at Benício’s baseline. As a city councillor, she champions “feminism for the 99 percent, [a form of feminism] that’s anti-racist, socialist, eco-socialist,” and believes in “the inclusion of women in all spaces of society.” Last week, Benício gave a speech to a public audience on lesbian health—the first time such an event has occurred, which she describes as “symbolic.” She also participated in a discussion about feminism and lesbophobia with Adriana Guzmán, a Bolivian Indigenous Aymara activist and feminist, and put forward a bill to prevent the endemic killing of women in the country. “This project has not been voted on yet, but we’ve started the process of discussion in the council,” she says.
In 2011, a gunman opened fire on a school in Rio’s Realengo suburb, killing 12 children and injuring more. “The kids who died were poor and Black,” Benício says. Two weeks before our interview, Benício’s proposal to provide the families affected with a lifelong minimum wage was approved by the city council. It is this kind of grassroots political action that Marielle Franco was known for, and the phrase “Fight like Marielle!” has become a rallying cry for equality in her wake.
“My life is at risk because I will not stop fighting for justice,” says Benício. Franco would be proud.
Images courtesy of Mônica Benício
