Fabiana Escobar visited Rocinha to talk to Bem-Te-Vi, the owner of the slum, and collect the money for her husband's expenses in jail. When she was close she veered off the path and, minutes later, gunfire hit a transformer and turned off all the lights in the favela. Bem-Te-Vi was dead.
Fabiana's fate came close to the fate of many women involved in drug trafficking who, imprisoned or dead, can no longer raise their children.
The breakdown of families is one of the worst consequences of a path that usually begins with them seeking money, power, and love. Another result is the overcrowding of women's prisons, whose population, mostly black, has grown six times in the last 20 years. More than half are detained for drug trafficking or related crimes.
When her husband was arrested, Fabiana became Bibi Perigosa and assumed a position in command of the largest favela in Brazil.
The drug trafficking manager of a favela in the metropolitan region of Rio, Rayane Nazareth da Silveira, Hello Kitty, 21, was killed in June in a Military Police operation. In July, the Civil Police of SP also arrested Lorraine Cutier Bauer Romeiro, 19, the Cracolândia Kitten.
Contrary to them, most women who enter crime "occupy a subordinate and absolutely disposable position," says criminal lawyer Maíra Fernandes.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon