Existential harm resulting from sexual abuse against women and children in riverine communities of the Amazon

Abstract

The present work analyzes the existential damage resulting from sexual abuse practiced against women and children in riverside communities of the Amazon, examining how sexual violence, associated with the structural omission of the State, produces profound and lasting consequences on the victims' life project. The research is based on the recognition that riverside populations live in a condition of multidimensional vulnerability, marked by geographic isolation, the absence of essential public services and the lack of effective social protection networks, factors that amplify the devastating effects of sexual violence and hinder victims' access to justice. Based on a literature review and analysis of the relevant legislation, especially the Federal Constitution of 1988, the Statute of the Child and Adolescent, the Maria da Penha Law and Law No. 13,431/2017, the work discusses the constitutional foundations of the State's civil liability for omission, demonstrating that the repeated failure to comply with the positive duties of protection of children and riverside women configures a structural failure of the public service,  legally able to support state accountability. The research maintains that the full reparation of these victims requires, in addition to monetary compensation, the imposition of obligations to the State, embodied in the provision of therapeutic, educational and social reintegration services adapted to the specificities of the riverside communities. It is concluded that the legal recognition of existential damage, articulated with state civil liability for omission, represents a necessary path for the realization of human dignity and for the transformation of the structural conditions that perpetuate sexual violence in these communities.