Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro apologized Tuesday after his visit to a group of teenagers he implied were sex workers, drawing accusations of “pedophilia” from opponents.
The far-right president, who was fighting for re-election in a runoff against veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Oct. 30, was caught in a firestorm over his comments about underage Venezuelan girls, whom he called “very pretty.”
“If my words, maliciously taken out of context, were in any way misinterpreted or made our Venezuelan sisters uncomfortable, I apologize,” Bolsonaro said in a video posted online.
“My commitment has always been to better welcome and help all people fleeing dictatorships around the world,” he added, flanked by his wife and Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido’s representative in Brazil.
Bolsonaro recognizes Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, rather than socialist President Nicolas Maduro.
The controversy erupted on Friday when Bolsonaro spoke in a YouTube interview about visiting the home of “three or four very pretty 14 or 15 year olds” in a poor neighborhood of Brasilia last year.
“There was a vibe between us. I turned around. ‘Can I come to your house?’ I went in. There were 15 or 20 girls (in the house), all Venezuelans, ages 14, 15, getting ready on a Saturday. Why? To make a living,” he said.
The anecdote seemed intended as one of Bolsonaro’s frequent warnings that Brazil will suffer the same fate as troubled Venezuela if it votes for Lula.
But Bolsonaro has been on the defensive after Lula allies attacked the comments as “tainted” and the hashtag #Bolsonaropedofilo (Bolsonaro pedophile) went viral online.
His campaign was successful in a petition to the electoral authorities on Sunday to ban an attack ad based on excerpts from the interview.
But Bolsonaro said the previous day had been “the most terrifying of my life”.
– repeated anecdote –
In an interview Tuesday, Lula said Bolsonaro’s behavior was “that of a paedophile.”
“He realized it, so he got scared and tried to explain himself as soon as possible,” Lula said.
After Bolsonaro’s apology, at least two more videos were shared online in which the president shared the same anecdote about the girls.
Rosangela da Silva, Lula’s wife, tweeted an excerpt of another interview with Bolsonaro a month ago in which he implied the girls were prostitutes.
In May, Bolsonaro also shared the anecdote during an event that was broadcast on public television.
“Do we want that for our daughters and granddaughters?” he said.
Bolsonaro, who has vehemently dismissed criticism from the opposition, said in Tuesday’s video that his former women’s minister, Damares Alves, “almost immediately” investigated the girls’ case and determined they were not in fact prostitutes.
He said Alves and First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro visited the girls Tuesday and “found them rebuilding their lives (and) even helping other Venezuelan refugees find work and integrate” in Brazil, which has an estimated 260,000 Venezuelans accommodates refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.
The Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper reported that the Venezuelan teenagers and their mothers had refused a request from Bolsonaro’s campaign to record a video on behalf of the president.
