Rising violence against Brazilian students in Portugal exposes accent bias

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After the incident, Brazilian welder Nivea Estevam, Jose’s mother, was able to transfer her son from the school located on the outskirts of the city of Viseu, where his fingers were stuck in the bathroom door by two students, which led to the amputation of the tips of his index and middle fingers. He also had to change cities, because the child was psychologically traumatized by the violence he was exposed to because of his presence and speaking differently.

— There is a lack of integration policy in schools due to lack of interest on the part of the state and teachers. He is not a child that society, especially Portuguese society, considers to be the norm. Therefore, he was rejected by the children, first because he spoke differently from them, and before that by the faculty, who viewed black immigrants as subhuman – said Nevea. – There is, hidden, xenophobia.

According to the Directorate General of Education and Science Statistics (DGEEC), 88,000 Brazilians were enrolled by the end of the first semester of this year in the Brazilian equivalent of kindergarten, secondary and primary education. This is an increase of more than 550% since the new wave of immigration that began in 2017. Today, there are approximately 500,000 Brazilians officially in the country, but the immigration agency’s number does not include those with dual citizenship. The total can exceed 600 thousand.

In light of the boom witnessed by the largest foreign community, the then Minister of Education, João Costa, announced a project to educate teachers four years ago. He was part of the Socialist Party, which left power in 2024 – and left office in 2022. Now director of the European Agency for Inclusive Education, he explained what happened to the project.

— I left the matter of setting up training in the region to the Department of Education, but I do not know if it is continuing. “I am sad, because the original problem is the understanding that we are all Portuguese speakers and no one can be discriminated against for speaking their own language,” Costa said.

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Jose’s mother was attacked on social media for reporting the attack. It refuted statements accusing the attackers, who it says were two Portuguese children, of being Brazilians. She said she recognized that there was discrimination and bullying in schools in almost all countries, but in José’s case and in Portugal, the target was very specific:

— It was bullying because he was different, from a different nationality, but also because he spoke differently. The kid who cut off my son’s finger was the first to start saying that he didn’t know how to speak Portuguese, and that he had to learn, because they didn’t understand what he was saying. My son has very good diction, she says, and he is from Belém do Pará. — Saying that he does not know how to speak his mother tongue is a violence that these children reproduce and comes from somewhere: from school, from their parents, or from the street.

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Some schools in the country have students of more than 40 nationalities, with foreigners prevailing among Brazilians and Africans, from countries such as Cape Verde and Angola. This is precisely why “it is necessary to work better on the integration of immigrants into the teaching staff,” explains psychologist and writer Rut Agulhas, who has an extensive CV in the field of family therapy and children’s rights. It also highlights the importance of guidance from family members, who often discriminate against Brazilian music and YouTubers at home, as happened with brothers Felipe and Lucas Neto.

— In the view of many families and educators, funk music contains sexual content and is not appropriate for children. Hence, the YouTubers, who parents and teachers complain about, speak with a “Brazilian” accent and use expressions (when they speak) that are transferred to the written text, which is seen as negative. Agulhas said it is a form of discrimination.

X, the son of a Portuguese man and a Brazilian woman, almost ended up in hospital after being attacked at a public school in Portugal. His mother, who asked to remain anonymous, said the boy, who was just 6 years old, almost had his stomach split open because he did not pronounce the word “carrot” in the way the attackers – adults and children – demanded. After hearing the accent, they said they wanted to know the nationality of the blood running through his veins.

— He was at break when two of his colleagues intercepted him and insisted that he say the word “carrot” with the Portuguese pronunciation. When that did not happen, they took a sharp stone, detained my son and were preparing to cut his stomach, to see if he had Portuguese blood, but they could not. She said no one saw him.

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The Brazilian said that, when she learned of the case, she immediately went to school, where, in her opinion, everything was treated as a child’s game, as in the incident that happened to Jose.

-First, try to blame the victim. Then the kids apologized and that was it. It’s normal behavior. He had a teacher who told him to be quiet every time he wanted to speak. If he speaks “Brazilian”, he is forbidden from talking or playing with other children – said the Brazilian.

About a year ago, Brazilian Jennifer Lima was beaten outside a school in Santarém, in an episode that was filmed, which went viral and shocked the country. She mentioned to GLOBO that she always heard ridicule because of her accent. Although the aggression was not directly motivated by language, the fact that she was Brazilian played a role.

The teachers ignore it and don’t say anything. They make fun of the way I speak and try to imitate me. When I needed to speak in class, the teacher said I was grammatically wrong and that I was in Portugal. Jokingly but maliciously. That’s why I’m passing the law to protect people who can’t get protection. “I want to be fair,” Jennifer said.

Her mother, Lucilia Oliveira, filed a complaint with the police station and took the teenager to the hospital, where she received a report of the assault. Investigations inside and outside the school did not reveal anything.

– Just an apology. (Aggressors) feel protected because they are Portuguese. When it comes to us Brazilians, they want to investigate. Lucilia said she is still under psychiatric care because of everything that happened.

• Immigration: “The current immigration structure in Portugal is not supposed to make things easier,” says the expert.

Y’s daughter, who also requested to remain anonymous, was attacked in another violent incident in the Lisbon metropolitan area. Like Jennifer, she is a teenager and, naturally, more resistant to pronouncing the language with a Portuguese accent.

– It starts with teachers, passes through school staff, infects students and continues in Portuguese families. Discrimination that breeds discrimination – declared Y. — She is 16 years old from Brazil and will not speak like a Portuguese person or with a Portuguese accent. But even today, the Portuguese teacher demands grammatical structure: “Speak our language,” she says.

When contacted, the Ministry of Education, which opened an investigation into the case of the assault on student Jose, did not respond to what happened to the teachers’ awareness project.