BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil‘s president says she’ll ask congress to pass legislation to reserve 20 percent of the nation’s government jobs for its Black citizens, according to an Associated Press report.
About half of Brazil’s 204 million people are of African descent — more than in any nation except Nigeria.
Black Brazilians face persistent socio-economic inequality, and President Dilma Rousseff says her proposal will help reverse that. She says “affirmative action is essential” for creating equal opportunities.
There is no word on when congress might begin debating the proposal.
Rousseff also said Tuesday that by the end of next year, her government will have sent a doctor to each of Brazil’s more than 3,500 “quilombos,” settlements founded by descendants of Africans who escaped from the brutal conditions of slavery .
Portuguese slave traders brought more captured Africans to Brazil than any other country in the Americas.
