Minister of Environment says she suffered gender-based violence in the Senate
27 de May de 2025
By Ana Cláudia Leocádio – From Cenarium
BRASÍLIA (DF) – The Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, considers she was subjected to gender-based violence by Senator Plínio Valério (PSDB-AM), who during a public hearing in the Senate’s Infrastructure Committee (CI) this Tuesday, the 27th, said he respected her not as a “minister” but as a “woman.” Marina left the session because she felt disrespected by the senator and conditioned her stay on a formal apology from him, which did not occur.
After abruptly leaving the meeting with the senators, Marina Silva had a hearing with the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), to discuss the bill that creates the General Law of Environmental Licensing, considered a setback by the ministry she leads.
Upon leaving, she was asked whether she considered the treatment in the Senate as gender-based violence. “Certainly, and this happens to us all the time. I now used ‘us’ to create sorority among us. Because you, in the previous government, many female journalists were also attacked while doing your job. I felt attacked while doing my job,” she said.
This is not the first time Plínio has been accused of gender-based violence against Marina. He was reported by eight federal congresswomen and one congressman to the Senate’s Ethics and Parliamentary Decorum Council for his statements in which he said he wanted to strangle the minister.
The strangulation comments against Marina were made by Plínio during an event of the Amazonas Trade Federation (Fecomércio-AM), in March this year, in Manaus. Upon receiving the Amazonas 2025 Commercial Merit Medal, he made statements against the minister regarding the BR-319 highway and, during his speech, said: “Imagine what it’s like to tolerate Marina for six hours without strangling her.”
In Representation 01/2025, filed on March 20 this year in the Senate, the lawmakers argue that the senator from Amazonas “overstepped his parliamentary immunity and violated women’s political participation rights, demeaning the Minister’s status as a woman and inciting gender-based violence, thus encouraging discrimination based on female sex.”
Marina was also asked this Tuesday whether she intends to take legal action against the senator from Amazonas. “The statement the senator had made, that it was very hard for him not to strangle me, I was already analyzing with my lawyers. Now, he made the situation worse when they deliberately invite me as a senator and then say they don’t respect me as a minister. Thank God, I respect everyone, I always seek to have respectful dialogue. Now, what they will never get from me is submission,” she said.
The petition to the Senate was signed by federal deputies Nurse Ana Paula (PDT-CE), Benedita da Silva (PT-RJ), Duda Salabert (PDT-MG), Gisela Simona (União-MT), Jandira Feghali (PCdoB-RJ), Laura Carneiro (PSD-RJ), Maria Arraes (Solidariedade-PE), Tabata Amaral (PSB-SP), Talíria Petrone (PSOL-RJ), and federal deputy Túlio Gadêlha (REDE-PE).
The lawmakers base their request on Law 14.192/2021, which establishes rules to prevent, curb, and combat political violence against women, and on Senate Resolution No. 20/1993, which instituted the Code of Ethics and Parliamentary Decorum of the Federal Senate. They also use a post by CENARIUM on social media, which was the first to publish the video with the senator’s statements, as proof of the case’s national repercussion.
Gender-based violence includes forms of violence perpetrated against someone based on their gender or sexual orientation. It can be physical, psychological, sexual, or symbolic, with women being historically the most affected due to power inequalities.
The representation has been stalled in the Senate Ethics Council for two months and awaits the designation of the new committee members, whose mandate expired at the end of March. It is up to the Senate president, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), to appoint the new members, which has not yet occurred.
Marina leaves hearing
Minister Marina Silva was invited, at the request of Senator Lucas Barreto (PSD-AP), to provide information about studies and meetings held to create marine Conservation Units on the Coast of the State of Amapá, in the so-called Equatorial Margin. However, she ended up being questioned about other issues such as the paving of BR-319, potash exploration in Autazes (AM), and the “Ferrogrão” railway in Mato Grosso, for example.
After answering other senators’ questions, Plínio took the floor to question Marina. “Minister Marina, it’s good to see you again, and when I look at you, I see the minister; I’m not talking to the woman,” said the PSDB senator, who was immediately rebuked by Marina. “You’re talking to both,” she replied.
Plínio replied again: “No, no. Because the woman deserves respect, the minister does not. That’s why I want to separate the two.” That’s when the minister questioned him. “Why don’t you respect me as a minister? You’re the one who said you wanted to strangle me,” she fired back.
At that moment, the argument escalated, with intervention from the CI president, Senator Marcos Rogério (PL-RO), who was questioned by Marina on how he would react if she said she didn’t respect him. He asked his colleagues to try to maintain a civil environment until the end of the hearing, without disrespect.
Senator Rogério Carvalho (PT-SE) also intervened, demanded respect for the minister, and suggested the guest’s withdrawal if the disrespect continued. “The political debate can be heated, points of view and differences can be expressed. But expressions of disrespect are unacceptable! When someone begins by saying, ‘I respect the woman but not the minister,’ that doesn’t belong in an institutional debate like this,” Carvalho said.
Marina reiterated that she was not disrespecting anyone and reminded them that Plínio had previously said he wanted to strangle her, in another hearing she attended. “I’m not provoking anyone; he’s the one who said he doesn’t respect me,” she said.
After attempts to resume the debate, the minister said she would only stay if Plínio apologized, because she was there as a State minister and not as a woman. “Either he apologizes, or I will leave. Because I was invited as a minister, and he doesn’t respect me as a minister. Ask me for an apology and I’ll stay. If you don’t, I’ll leave,” she stated.
The Amazonas senator refused to apologize and justified his stance by saying he had nothing against the woman, only differences with the minister. “You’re shouting, and when you say I’m a psychopath, are you believing in your own statement? (…) Are you afraid of me, minister?” said Plínio, as Marina left the room.
Regarding the BR-319, Marina said she was out of the federal government for 15 years and questioned why the highway wasn’t paved during that time. For her, it’s easier to make her the “scapegoat” than to admit the incompetence of still not being able to release the works, which require a governance policy capable of preventing environmental deforestation around the highway.
Minister justifies her stance
After leaving the hearing, Marina recalled that she served as a senator for 16 years and is currently a federal deputy for the state of São Paulo, on leave to serve as minister.
“I’m a former senator; I’m the Minister of the Environment. That’s the role I was invited for. Hearing a senator say he doesn’t respect me as a minister, I couldn’t react any other way. But I gave him a chance to apologize. Since he’s the same person who, the last time I came here also as a guest, said it was very difficult for him to spend six hours and ten minutes with me without strangling me, today he came here again to attack me. In addition to people assigning me responsibilities that are theirs,” Marina declared.
The minister was referring to another senator from Amazonas, Omar Aziz (PSD), who clashed with her shortly before Plínio Valério. At the time, he said Marina was responsible for approving the project that creates the new General Environmental Licensing Law, which passed in the Senate last week and is now awaiting review in the Chamber of Deputies.
“Because saying that the delay, the dismantling of environmental legislation, which was carried out here in the Senate with the approved report, is my responsibility, is to refuse to honor the vote of those who elected you. Because those who hold a senator’s or deputy’s mandate vote based on their convictions, not because someone forced them,” Marina countered.
Marina was emphatic about the treatment she received and how she positions herself in relation to it. “What can’t happen is someone thinking that because you’re a woman, because you’re Black, because you come from a humble background, that they can define who I am and still say I should stay in my place. My place is wherever all women deserve to be,” she said, after being the target of an argument with parliamentarians.