Introduction
With a population of over 360,000 Brazilians living in Portugal, the largest immigrant population residing in the country, complaints relating to xenophobia have been growing steadily in recent years, ringing an alarm for intolerance towards this specific population.
According to a 2021 report from the Commission for Equality and Against Racial Discrimination (CICDR), the specialised body in Portugal dedicated to combating racial discrimination, complaints grew 500 percent in comparison to 2020, with news of physical and verbal aggression, xenophobic attacks, and even homophobic ones. The report highlights that the nationality of foreigners is the most common factor in those complaints (39.2 percent), followed by skin color (17 percent) and, ethno-racial origin (16.9 percent), meaning that Brazilians face discrimination for several deeply intricated reasons, going beyond being treated and perceived as outsiders.
Diversity viewed as a menace
The aggressions are far worse for women, Black Brazilians, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community, as their diversity is viewed as a menace. Marcelo Constantino, a gay and Black Brazilian, exposed four work colleagues who attacked him during a lunch break, who stated, “I don’t like Brazilians and gay is even worse!”. When he tried to explain to his boss what had happened and sought proper disciplinary action for it, his boss responded that he should learn how to accept a joke. Often, Brazilians are dissuaded from seeking judicial measures or reporting the aggression, as authorities tend to consider the aggressions as jokes or as light offences, arguing that discontented immigrants should return to their country of origin.
The absence of documents, financial vulnerability, and being far away from friends and familial support for those newly arrived in the country, expose thousands of Brazilians to violence through low paid and abusive jobs that exploit their labour, or even through sexual exploitation and trafficking.
Portugal is a sought after popular destination for Brazilians searching for a better life and better job opportunities in Europe for a variety of reasons, including the lack of language barrier, similar weather conditions, and a lower cost of living in comparison to other European states. However, the country shows a dark façade of aversion and fear towards immigrants.
Already carrying the burden of living outside their home country and rebuilding their lives, immigrants are equally affected by the view that the host society has of them, deemed as troublemakers, not adequately integrated, menaces to the culture and tradition, and distorters of the Portuguese way of living, a prejudice that runs deep in Portugal’s history.
The burden of immigration
Immigration is often highlighted and burdened with disqualification and stigmatisation. Behaviours, particularly deviant ones, can be seen as a reflection of immigration itself and be analysed as a consequence of it, rather than a personal act conducted by a foreigner that could also be committed by a citizen. Furthermore, an individual’s legal status tends to become the focal point of public discussion when a crime is committed by an immigrant, rather than the crime itself, which is often overshadowed by the lack of documentation. This selective framing fuels stereotypes and wrongly associates the entire immigrant community, with all its pluralistic nuances, with delinquency.
This means that not only is the person being condemned for committing a crime, or an offence, but also for being a migrant. The sole fact of having moved to another country with the intent of staying there is considered a crime, it is a double penalty, a manifestation of state
The original text: “já não gosto de zuca e paneleiro é foda!”. Translated by the author.
hypocrisy, as migrants are needed for labour but are denied full membership and protection from expulsion (Sayad, 1998). According to Sayad, whose context was closely related to France but could be applied to other ex-coloniser countries, this approach comes from a hierarchical relationship between the former metropole and its ex-colonies and is present in the judgements that the society and the state make regarding migrants, and those judgements passed by the courts. It is at the root of the collective thinking of nationals, as the fact of immigration itself is considered as a fault, a failure or an anomie, as “the immigrant’s presence is always viewed as a default, an absence, or due to an absence, a presence that, ideally should not be there” (Sayad, 1998).
That is one of the reasons why nationals from Brazil, an ex-colony of Portugal, are mistreated and not fully accepted by Portuguese society, even though the similarities are more striking than the differences between both populations. The image of failure and anomie is still embedded in the former, whereas the colonising behaviour is still in the latter, leading to xenophobia, hatred and exclusion.
Xenophobia as an intersectional discrimination
Xenophobia as a category of discrimination is commonly understood as the fear of or hatred of those considered as the “outsiders”, being legally recognised only when it is based on the traditional grounds of colour and ethnic origin. However, this move to make xenophobia be viewed solely as racial discrimination disregards a significant aspect of it, the fact that it is a form of discrimination that can become entangled not only with colour, ethnicity, national origin, and descent, but also with language, religion, culture, gender, and so on. It is a complex relationship that cannot be disentangled from one another.
It is discrimination that can be defined as dislike or prejudice against actual or perceived foreigners. Second, and third generations of immigrants that were born in the country and should be treated on the same standards as other citizens, as they most likely already acquired the country’s citizenship, may also be discriminated against by their heritage or physical traits, and still considered as non-belonging.
Since the declaration at the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action that “xenophobia against non-nationals, particularly migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers, constitutes one of the main sources of contemporary racism”, the term has been progressively understood as overlapping with or similar to racial discrimination, indicating a link between both, but not being limited to this category (DDPA, 2002).
That is why a heuristic view of it appears to be a misfit for xenophobia, as it is intersectional in nature, implicating several cross-secting grounds at once, leading to the appreciation of how this type of discrimination is often co-constituted by how a lack of nationality and citizenship can become bound with skin colour, descent, and national origin, but also culture, gender, language, and so much more.
This can be directly applied to the situation in which Brazilians can find themselves when living in Portugal, as the discrimination they suffer is not only related to the fact that they are viewed as outsiders or as foreigners, but also due to their skin colour, their culture, their gender, and their language.
There is xenophobia in the construction of a national identity within an excluding Portuguese language, as there is an idea that correct Portuguese is the one spoken in Portugal, and there should not have been variants of it. It also explains why, while speaking the same language and having similar cultural habits and a common history, Brazilians are still viewed negatively by Portuguese people, especially women and Black people, as we can see by the testimonies:
Those who know me know that I love living in Portugal, but I also don’t ignore it when a service or experience could have been better. When I express that, I become the target of violent attacks, like ‘go back to your country’ or extremely aggressive insults such as ‘you slum-dweller, you monkey’! This shows a strong resistance to accepting criticism coming from Brazilians, even when it’s constructive. (Larissa Abreu, entrepreneur).
And: “I really like it, but I can’t say that I feel at home because I’m constantly reminded that I don’t belong. I’m ashamed to speak, and my accent prevents me from being treated with respect.”, another Brazilian woman stated during her interview.
Physical attacks are also symptoms of this discrimination, such as the ones Gabriela suffered in June 2025, when she was walking around downtown Porto while talking with a friend at half past ten in the evening. After a while, a Portuguese man opened a window and yelled at them, demanding that they speak softly. Soon after, the same man threw a stone, hitting Gabriela’s head, seriously harming her. These are just a few examples that demonstrate that xenophobia in Portugal goes beyond the fear of foreigners, but it is also permeated by gender violence, explaining why it targets more Brazilian women than men.
Gender violence and xenophobia
According to the same report produced by the CICDR, when the xenophobia complaints are broken down on the basis of gender, 45.9 percent of the complaints are filed by women and 33 percent by men. Brazilian women are the biggest victims of hate crimes in Portugal, accounting for 58.2 percent of the victims.
Those crimes are also related to a stereotype associated with this population, often hypersexualised and regarded as people of low standards, being vulnerable to exploitation and violence, even in the workplace. This happened to Maria do Socorro whilst pursuing her dream of a better life for herself in Portugal. Working as an auxiliary nurse, she experienced firsthand the violence and discrimination: Besides the exhausting hours, multiple shifts, and low
The original text: “Quem me conhece sabe que eu adoro viver em Portugal, mas também não ignoro quando um serviço ou experiência poderia ter sido melhor. Quando expresso isso, sou alvo de ataques violentos, como ‘volte para sua terra’ ou insultos extremamente agressivos como ‘sua favelada, sua macaca’! Isso mostra uma forte resistência em aceitar críticas vindas de brasileiros, mesmo quando são construtivas”. Translated by the author.
pay, my bosses also tried to trick me into having sex with their teenage children. They said, ‘What’s the problem? Brazilian women don’t like sex?!’.
It goes beyond being exploited for labour reasons, as Maria do Socorro was already overworked and underpaid; there is also the sexual exploitation of it, as the bodies of Brazilian women are often hypersexualised and regarded as objects to be used.
It is also important to recognise that the violence is not restricted to random acts of aggression in the streets committed by strangers, or at the workplace, but also occurs in a domestic environment, committed by intimate partners, which is one of the most common forms of violence against this population (European Institute for Gender Equality – EIGE, 2016; Neves & Costa, 2017). In Portugal, women represent most victims of domestic violence committed by intimate partners, accounting for 83 percent in 2022 (EIGE, 2022). This category includes acts of physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence that occur within the family or domestic unit. Such abuse is a widespread problem that affects all women, but particularly those most vulnerable, such as immigrants.
Results of empirical research conducted with 114 immigrant women living in the abovementioned country (Silva et al, 2022) showed that the intimate experiences of these women are marked by violent episodes of psychological and verbal aggression. Furthermore, these women usually do not seek help and do not file a formal complaint, which reinforces the victimising state they are immersed in. All these violent acts cause damage to the health and well-being of individuals, and can be directly related to physical, psychological, sexual, social, or economic damage, both in the victims and their families (World Health Organization, 2012).
Although immigration can be a positive experience for women and their families, leading to better job opportunities, higher salaries, stable, and safe lives for themselves and their families, exposing them to new ideas and social norms, it also reinforces the gender asymmetries and reproduces mechanisms of discrimination and oppression (Bastia & Piper, 2019),. When added, other factors such as skin colour, financial conditions, professional instability, history of violence in the family, isolation or irregular situation, and the violence are aggravated, as it aggregates other forms of assault, such as racism, aporophobia, the usage of the partner’s undocumented status as a means of control, and so on. Several women do not report the abuse from fear of being expelled from the country they chose to live in.
The numbers are alarming. In Portugal, trafficking victims for the purpose of sexual exploitation are mostly from Brazil, and these women portray a double condition of frailty, as 90 percent of them have already suffered attacks in direct relation to their gender and their immigrant status (Dias and Ramos, 2019; (Internal Security System, 2018). Other actors that help attach negative stereotypes to Brazilians are the mass media and the press. Women from
The original text: “Além das horas exaustivas de trabalho, em diversos turnos e a uma baixa remuneração, os patrões ainda queriam me induzir a fazer sexo com os seus filhos adolescentes. Eles diziam: qual o problema, brasileiras não gostam de sexo!?”. Translated by the author.
Aporophobia is a neologism created by a Spanish philosopher called Adela Cortina to describe the adverse attitude from the non-poor against the poor, a rejection of the poor (FEANTSA, 2021).
Brazil are often represented by the press as exotic and sexualised, living in the country with the sole intent of leading fraudulent marriages to acquire Portuguese nationality or to gain financial benefits from their native partners. This image perpetuates a reductive image of their attributes and skills, of the hardships they face to rebuild their lives and of what they have already achieved back in Brazil. It disregards their contributions to their new country and all the benefits that migration can have for other countries.
Furthermore, the fear of losing their jobs, being attacked, not being believed or having to go through the violence again can stop women from reporting xenophobic attacks, such as the case of Lorena Gurgel, a journalist who denounced a xenophobic attack online on June 11, 2025 and received several hate messages related to it, comments that impacted her mental health and her son’s integrity as they also attacked her family (G1, 2025). It is a behaviour intended to stop victims from speaking out about the violence that they suffer.
This violence takes away opportunities and dreams of thousands of Brazilian women, leaving them hurt and vulnerable, usually cornered and unprotected. That is why it is so important that the government, civil society, and organisations mobilise to create programmes and mechanisms that can help victims and, better yet, prevent them from becoming victims by bringing awareness to the population and breaking the stereotype often portrayed by the media and the press.
Furthermore, it is important to create job opportunities and integration programmes that allow immigrants to have financial independence and strong support to be able to break free from a violent relationship or be vigilant of sexual or labour trafficking and defend themselves from predators. Finally, partnerships between international organisations, such as the High Commission for Migrations (ACM) and the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (CIG), and the National Network of Support for Victims of Domestic Violence (RNAVVD) with programmes created specifically for immigrant women, are crucial to break this cycle of violence.
Conclusion
Through xenophobia and hate crimes, an attempt is made to impose the domestication of the bodies and minds of Brazilians in a supposed correct way of being, existing, and speaking that is only found among Portuguese people.
It is a recurring reminder of non-belonging regardless of being documented or not, of having lived their whole lives in Portugal or having just arrived, if the person does not resemble the ‘ideal’ Portuguese citizen, they are still considered as outsiders and, therefore, subjected to several types of violence, including xenophobia.
However, xenophobia goes beyond the discrimination of a foreigner, as it is intrinsically related to the skin colour, ethnic background, culture, language, and even gender of the victim. It is an aggregate of personal characteristics and vulnerabilities that lead to violence with a purpose to dominate, expel, and hurt immigrants.
Women, already the biggest group subjected to domestic and gender violence, are also more vulnerable and often targeted by xenophobic attacks once they immigrate, showing the importance and necessity that public authorities, governments, organisations, and society in general give special attention to protecting and securely integrating this population in their countries.
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