Pricilla de Oliveira Azevedo | |
|---|---|
 Pricilla de Oliveira Azevedo at the International Women of Courage Award in 2012. | |
| Born | c. 1978 |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
| Occupation | police officer |
Major Pricilla de Oliveira Azevedo (born c. 1978) is a Brazilian police officer who has won international awards for her service. [1]
She was born in about 1978 and she was brought up in Laranjeiras neighborhood. She arrested people who had earlier kidnapped her and held her prisoner. [2]
In 1998 she joined the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State, and in 2000 she began working in street repression operations and police battalions. [1] In 2007 she was kidnapped and attacked, but she escaped and managed to arrest three of her kidnappers. [3] In 2008 she was placed in charge of the first “Police Pacification Unit” (UPP) in Rio de Janeiro, in the favela of Santa Marta. [1] [3] [2] As of January 2014 she is the chief of the Police Pacification Unit in Rocinha, which she became chief of in 2013 after its officers were accused of being involved in the disappearance of a local man. [4] [2]
She received a 2012 International Women of Courage award, and Veja named her Defender of the City. [1] [2]
Favela is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term, which means slum or ghetto, was first used in the Slum of Providência in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had lived under the favela trees in Bahia and had nowhere to live following the Canudos War. Some of the last settlements were called bairros africanos. Over the years, many former enslaved Africans moved in. Even before the first favela came into being, poor citizens were pushed away from the city and forced to live in the far suburbs.
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