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In a martial arts studio at the entrance to one of Rio de Janeiro’s beachside favelas, a muay thai instructor teaches a group of young women how to avoid blows, protect their head while falling and break free from an arm grab. “Women are vulnerable,” Ana Paula Lima tells them, “but we don’t have to be helpless.”
Sabrina Fortunato, a law student, is one of the 30 women who turned up for this free self-defence class on a Saturday, organised by the civil rights organisation Instituto de Defesa da População Negra and Rio city hall after a flood of gender-based violence grabbed headlines in Brazil.
“I’m looking for a way of feeling more physically safe,” says Fortunato, 19. “The news is shocking and makes women feel unsafe in their own country, in their own home.”
Gender-based violence in Brazil is not only rife, it’s growing. In a 2025 survey, 37.5% of women said they had experienced some kind of violence in the last year – including verbal and physical abuse, sexual violence and stalking – compared with 28.6% in the same survey eight years earlier.
The number of femicides increased by 14.5% in five years to 1,568 cases in 2025. In 16 of Brazil’s 27 states, 13% of femicide victims had a restraining order against their killer.
Women have held nationwide protests in recent months to condemn this violence and the state’s failure to prevent it despite strong laws – such as the 2006 Maria da Penha law tackling domestic violence – but in private they are also seeking out ways to protect themselves, with many turning to self-defence sports.
“Back [in 2019], there weren’t many initiatives that worked on self-defence as a tool for prevention and strengthening women. Now there are more women looking for this type of training and more projects are appearing,” says Érica Paes, a former MMA athlete who founded Empoderadas, a state-wide programme in Rio offering self-defence classes as well as legal and psychological aid to survivors of domestic violence. Since the programme began seven years ago, 35,000 women have used its services.
Six in every 10 Brazilian women practise or want to take up a combat sport, according to a recent market survey, and more than half of them cite learning to protect themselves as a reason.
Women who practise a combat sport or even just learn the basics of self-defence say it improves their confidence and physical awareness, as well as teaching them techniques to protect themselves and escape an attack.
“Jiujitsu [teaches you] to walk differently, to pay attention to things, to keep your hands free to avoid an assault or even an unwelcome embrace,” says Mariana Rocha, 38, a nutritionist who started jiujitsu last year after a local studio started offering a women-only class, and feels safer for it.
“I can’t help thinking; the case of the woman who was beaten up in a lift, if she’d had even basic notions of how to protect herself, she might not have suffered as much,” Rocha says, referring to a domestic violence case that shocked Brazil last year, when a man was recorded on security cameras hitting his girlfriend in the face more than 60 times.
One factor behind this growing violence is the influence of misogynistic online communities known as the manosphere, says Samira Bueno, executive director of the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, which produces regular data on violence.
In one recent case, an 18-year-old gang-rape suspect handed himself in to the police wearing a T-shirt with the words “Regret Nothing”, a catchphrase of the misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate.
In another, the text messages of a senior military police officer accused of shooting his wife dead in São Paulo show he described himself as an “alpha male” whose wife should be “an obedient and submissive beta female”.
Brazilians were also horrified by a TikTok trend that came to light just before International Women’s Day in March, in which men filmed themselves making punching, stabbing or shooting gestures after simulating a proposal, with the caption: “Training in case she says no.” Police launched an investigation and TikTok said in a statement that it had removed content that violated its community guidelines.
Citing “structural” and “growing” hatred against women, Brazil’s senate approved a bill to make misogyny a hate crime in late March. The bill must pass the lower house to become law. The government has also updated the Maria da Penha domestic violence law to increase protections for victims.
These measures are important, says Bueno, but the law often falls short due to lack of investment in public policy. “Women feel unprotected and the state has failed them … I think it’s natural that women go after solutions [such as self-defence],” she says.
Milane Lobato, 49, is a muay thai teacher who turned to martial arts 30 years ago after leaving an abusive relationship. “The law exists, but it’s not enforced,” she says. Lobato recently set up a project offering free self-defence classes to women and girls in Rocinha, Rio’s largest favela, seeing the need for a space where women can find the support that eludes them elsewhere.
“It’s not just about learning self-defence, it’s a support network,” says one of her students. The 31-year-old left the father of her three children last year after 15 years of physical, psychological and sexual violence. Police were doubtful and unsympathetic when she reported the abuse, she says, and she’s still fighting for custody of her eldest children.
But surrounded by other women on the blue tatami mats in Rocinha, she says, “you feel welcomed, you feel protected”.
