Rental assistance for victims of domestic violence: a benefit for extreme vulnerable women in the municipality of São Paulo/SP, Brazil

ABSTRACT

The study deals with the granting of a monthly rental assistance to women victims of domestic violence in the municipality of São Paulo/SP, Brazil. It proposes reflections on the agent condition, protective security, and substantive freedom in Amartya Sen's theory. It adopts the deductive approach to conduct the research and analyzes data from the Municipal Secretariat for Human Rights and Citizenship about this assistance benefit in the period of April to June 2021, to point out the bottlenecks and the contributions of this public policy, even more important in pandemic. It addresses the problem of knowing whether the rental assistance gives the conditions for the victim of violence to enjoy substantive freedom, protective security, and the agent condition, as proposed by Sen. It concludes that rent-aid is a relevant instrument to promote substantive freedom and protective security, as temporary monthly transfer of income to afford housing is integrated with programs that focus on professional qualification, income generation, and insertion of women in the labor market which brings about conditions for financial autonomy of the victim of domestic violence and enhances the expansion of the capabilities set and female empowerment. © 2022, Onati International Institute for the Sociology of Law. All rights reserved.