Alessandra Bastos
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - The head of the Special Secretariat for Women's Policies, minister Nilcéa Freire, says that the biggest challenge facing the government in 2006 in the area of female health in Brazil is reducing the number of deaths due to cancer of the uterus.

She explains that a study on this type of cancer was done in recent years and showed "that the impact of earlier campaigns and policies was slight. Therefore, we have a challenge this year to turn the situation around," the minister told the Agência Brasil at the opening, Tuesday (14), of the National Seminar on Social Control of Women's Health Policies, in Brasília.

In relation to violence directed against women, one of the topics of discussion at the seminar, the minister says that the matter needs to be viewed as a problem for all of society, since it "contributes to violence in general. Children reared in a setting in which violence represents the response to all kinds of problems will certainly grow up to be adults that know only the language of violence to respond to situations of anguish, conflict, or insecurity."

A document with guidelines for the government to follow in formulating women's health policies will be the result of the three-day debate, which ends today (16).

Translation: David Silberstein