Femicides are violent deaths of women resulting from power struggles between men and women. This was a qualitative study that used the tool of narratives to analyze police investigations of female homicides in Porto Alegre, in the years from 2006 to 2010. Ninety-two police inquiries conducted by the Homicide Division of Porto Alegre were studied and six cases that were considered representative of intimate femicide, femicide with sexual abuse, death through execution or connection and sex worker femicide were selected. The presence of gender crimes characterized by cruelty, similar to those found in regions of high violence and misogyny, was observed. This study sought to give visibility to femicide as a crime of political nature and had the aim of denouncing these preventable deaths, whose victims are mostly young black women, sex workers and residents of districts marked by drug trafficking and poverty.
Homicide; Femicide; Female deaths due to assault