It was a discreet wedding, with close relatives and little else. But, as soon as the photograph of the happy couple and the details of the marriage came out, the link of the mayor of Araucária (Brazil) with his fifth wife was news throughout the city and, in a breath, all of Brazil had found out. It created controversy for a variety of reasons. Because the wedding was held four days after the bride turned 16, the minimum age to legally marry with family or judge permission; because he is 65 years old and because, on the eve of sealing his love before a notary, the alderman gave a position in the City Council to his future mother-in-law. He appointed her Councillor for Culture. The scandal was served, but surprisingly – or not – outraged more by the flank of nepotism than by the abysmal age difference between the couple, almost half a century.
But this case, although it has unique elements, is by no means exceptional. Last year, Brazilian notaries registered 12,509 marriages in which at least one spouse was 16 or 17 years old. That's 34 teenage brides every day. Girlfriends, with a, because the vast majority are female.
The photo of the smiling couple as she, Kauane Rode Camargo, places the wedding ring on him, Hissam Hussein Dehaini, on the wedding day flew on the Internet. The mayor's party quickly disowned him. And, in the face of popular fury against the appointment of his mother-in-law, he soon dismissed her although before he defended that 26 years of civil servant guaranteed his worth.
When they are about to complete the first month married, the wedding and the formidable subsequent controversy are still the most talked about issue among the residents of Araucária. He confirms it on the phone from there E. T., a man who asks to identify himself with initials to speak freely of the case that has revolutionized this city of 140,000 inhabitants located in the State of Paraná founded by Polish immigrants 130 years ago.
Hissam Hussein Dehaini and his wife of 16 years. RR SS
"Like anywhere, there are people for and against," he explains, "but I do notice that, because he's an excellent manager, his supporters don't look on the negative side, that [marriage] is legal, but immoral. Many congratulate them, wish them good luck." This neighbor knows the alderman; to her, only by sight. E. T. says that Dehaini is a successful businessman with hotel, gas station and air taxi businesses who has created a lot of employment (and who was arrested on suspicion of links to drug trafficking two decades ago, according to the G1 website, of the Globo group). Personally, he was married four other times and has 16 children. Some, without a doubt, older than his current wife, who was recently a finalist in Miss Araucária Teen 2022. A conservative city, it also hosts a beauty contest for girls in the style of Little Miss Sunshine.
Perhaps the age difference did not shock so much because Brazil is well accustomed to weddings of older gentlemen with much younger women. Just review the last presidents and first ladies: Lula da Silva is 21 years older than his wife, Janja; Jair Bolsonaro takes 27 years to Michelle, but the record in this club is for Michel Temer, who takes 47 years to his wife, Marcela, whom he met when he was already a veteran politician and she a 19-year-old newly crowned miss.
But the controversy surrounding the mayor of Araucária and his teenage wife, beyond unleashing surprise and outrage, has had a positive side effect. It has helped to shine a spotlight on child marriage, which is still widespread in Brazil. The bride required her parents' (or a judge's) permission to marry, as required by law.
But these unions formalized before the authorities are only the tip of the iceberg, warns Ana Nery Lima, gender specialist at the NGO Plan International: "In Brazil, informal unions are very normalized. ' I got together' or 'we went to live together' is the most usual," he explains in an interview. The UN estimates that 26% of Brazilian women live as a couple before they turn 18; including 6% who were not even 15. It is partly culturally motivated. "In Brazil, when people hear the expression child marriage, they usually think of nine- or ten-year-old child brides in India, but they don't think of people they know, like that neighbor, that aunt or their grandmother, married at 14," says the expert.
And with the rhythm and tone of one who repeats a phrase a lot, he gives the definition: "For the UN, child marriage is a formal or informal union in which at least one of the parties is under 18 years old." That is, it includes the protagonists of this controversy.
Their wedding is unique for those 50 years that they have, for the repercussion, but also because this couple differs radically from the classic profile, which is not unique, of child marriage in Brazil. She is blonde, both are white, from the south of the country and from the affluent class, which contrasts, Lima emphasizes, with the statistics that suggest that it is a phenomenon that is preyed especially with black girls from poor families living in the north and northeast of Brazil.
Compared to the rest of the world, Brazil is, with 2.2 million affected, the fifth country in absolute numbers; but in percentage it is outside the list of the 20 worst, which leads Niger with 76% of minors living as a couple before 18.
The causes of this phenomenon in Brazil are both socioeconomic and cultural. The Plan International expert details: "When two minors marry, it is usually because she is pregnant and the family wants to protect the girl's reputation. But there is also the case of very poor families who have many children and who think: 'Look, at least [in another family] he will have something to eat, what to wear.' Then there's this entrenched macho culture that young women are more attractive." Lima details that in weddings with children under 16 and 17 years old, the age difference between the spouses is usually around 15 years, "and that means a very large inequality of power."
If more than 12,500 legal marriages a year in Brazil — or 34 teenage brides a day — seems like a high figure, it's worth noting that they've fallen 30% since 2019, when Congress amended the Civil Code to ban marriage before age 16 altogether.
Their Lordships thus closed a gap that ultimately allowed an adult who had raped a minor to marry her instead of going to jail and for her to have access to the abortion to which she is entitled by law. That gap was closed. Any sexual relationship with someone under the age of 16, whether consensual or not, is a crime in this country. And no one under the age of 16 can marry whether his family blesses him or not. For the NGO Plan International that is progress, but it continues in the battle to make marriage before 18 illegal.
After the huge controversy, the Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation into the marriage of the mayor of Araucária and suspicions of nepotism. As the wife is a minor, the case is secret.
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