DILMA ANNOUNCES MINHA CASA MINHA VIDA CHANGE

Last week on International Women’s Day an important new change to Minha Casa Minha Vida regarding women was announced by President Dilma Rousseff. From now on, if a couple in the scheme separates or divorces, the woman will get priority of tenure and ownership of the house they bought with government help.

However, not everyone in the Administration agrees with this announcement or the thinking and sentiments behind it.

For instance, Ronaldo Cramer, the Attorney General sought to remind the President that interventions of this kind were not strictly legal and in fact were interfering in a matter beyond Government remit.




Defending the change, Dilma proclaimed that she sees an important part of her job as “doing more for women”. In Brazil, despite many strides in recent years and decades, full equality of the genders in society is still far from a reality.

In the Minha Casa Minha Vida programme, there are several levels of government assistance, depending on the income of the family involved.

This latest ruling in favour of the female partner is intended to apply to the most basic. This is where the household income is up to three times the statutory minimum wage, where government subsidises the purchase of the home by up to ninety-five percent of the price (mortgage, not gift).

Commentators remark that this new amendment to the terms of the deal are in keeping with other schemes designed to help those on modest incomes. This is quoted as including other programmes such as Bolsa Familia, where help is focused on heads of households. There are exceptions of course, but in most cases when a couple splits, it is of course the woman who remains with the children. It is that feature of Brazilian life that the government says is informing their thinking in these matters.