It was an intense two days at Fiocruz Brasilia (22 and 23 October). Debates, experiences and voices that showed why caring is recognising. Here you'll find a series of exclusive articles on the International Seminar Homeless people: comprehensive care and rights now
The panel “Homeless Women: Comprehensive Care, Maternity and Social Protection from the Perspective of Gender and Race Equity”, held at the International Seminar on Homeless People: Comprehensive Care and Rights Now, at Fiocruz Brasilia, brought together three key voices to understand how gender, race and class shape the experience of homeless women.
The presentations by Florencia Montes Paez, Yara Flor Richwin and Joana D'arc Bazílio revealed that motherhood can simultaneously be a territory of institutional violence and an engine for subjective reorganisation. They pointed to the urgent need for policies that ensure comprehensive care, recognise the plurality of maternities and combat the racialisation of poverty, which results in the systematic interdiction of family ties.
Florencia Montes Paez: care from one's own trajectory
Florencia Montes Paez presented the Argentinian transfeminist organisation “Not So Distinct”, made up of women, trans people and dissidents who have lived or are living on the streets. The organisation provides shelter and autonomy, including a day centre and the La Madre Que No Fui project (aimed at women who have lost custody of their children). It also offers individual counselling for health issues and legal processes, two community houses, a bookbinding production centre, training on transfeminist accompaniment and its own publishing house, responsible for the book Monitoring is political.
Florencia explained that the organisation has four layers of action: direct assistance on the streets, the creation of spaces for women and dissidents, institutional action in public policy and self-management. These are coexistent layers, not linear stages. They all express concrete responses to violence, exclusion and poverty.
The regional confluence Rutas Ruas Transfeministas Sudacas, a partner of Rede Rua in Brazil, seeks to create a Latin American political corridor to address gender and street situations from the global South.
In her presentation, Florencia said that transfeminism is not limited to the defence of identities, but proposes another way of accompanying: sharing the painful, complex and often frustrating dimension of care. It's about building bonds without romanticising the street, recognising the real challenges and the need for autonomy.
With the economic crisis in Argentina, the sustainability of community spaces has become critical. Florencia asked for support and publicity, stressing that the strength of the organisation comes from the bond between its members, because there is love and welcome there.
Yara Flor Richwin: motherhood as subjective openness
Psychologist Yara Flor Richwin presented the results of two years of research and territorial mental health care. Although motherhood was not her initial focus, it emerged recurrently when listening to homeless women. According to Yara, motherhood appears as a decisive moment, crossed by pain, violence, possibilities for transformation and reorganisation of life.
To understand this, Yara used the concept of “reproductive hierarchies”, which distinguishes between valued maternities and disqualified maternities. On the streets, the maternities of black and poor women are systematically banned. They are automatically associated with disability, drug use or crime. This logic sustains family separations, even though the Statute of the Child and Adolescent prohibits break-ups motivated by socio-economic vulnerability.
Yara pointed out that pregnancy and the puerperium produce subjective openings that favour bonds, emotional networks and the reorganisation of projects. Many women stop using drugs, quit crime, seek support and plan new futures. For them, motherhood is not just about locus of oppression, but an opportunity for reconstruction.
Faced with the risk of separation, women develop resistance strategies. In general, they use extended care arrangements with grandparents, aunts and community networks, practices rooted in Afro-indigenous traditions. This breaks the expectation of mother-centred care and reveals shared motherhood, without the symbolic bond being weakened.
For Yara, recognising these practices requires abandoning moralistic views and understanding motherhood as a political exercise in invention and resistance.
Joana D'arc Bazílio: motherhood as an affirmation of power
Joana D'arc Bazílio, from the National Street People's Movement and CIAMP-Rua Nacional, presented her trajectory as a black woman with direct street experience. She stressed that although she now occupies institutional spaces, her legitimacy depends on remaining in dialogue with women in the territories, listening to their demands on an ongoing basis.
Her departure from the streets was fuelled by motherhood. In a moment of extreme vulnerability, she considered giving up her son, believing she couldn't look after him, an idea fuelled by the symbolic violence of constantly being considered incapable. When she became a mother, however, she rebuilt her trajectory and today raises four of her eight children on her own.
Joana reported being diagnosed as incapable by a psychiatrist, which reinforced the institutional ban on her motherhood. She contested the process, claiming that only those facing pregnancy and childbirth could judge her as a mother.
Her daily practice is to raise empowered black girls, teaching them to recognise value and rights. For her, occupying institutional spaces is less about power and more about ensuring that policies are formulated by listening to the women directly affected.
She recounted the milestone of the first National Meeting of Women in Street Situations, organised by black women with a street background. The meeting affirmed the political presence of these women and reinforced the need for specific policies.
Joana concluded that her fight is not for protagonism, but for transformation. Women living on the streets must occupy spaces because they are power: no one better than them to build policies that welcome and guarantee a future.
Convergences
The three speeches converge on central points. Maternity is a field of social, political and institutional dispute. Structural violence, driven by racism, class and gender, interdicts black and poor maternity centres. Women resist, creating shared care arrangements and autonomy projects. Comprehensive care requires bonding, listening and recognising trajectories. Policies must be built with the direct participation of women, valuing their agency.
The panel showed that protecting homeless women means abandoning punitive approaches and recognising motherhood as a space for invention, autonomy and the fight for rights. Comprehensive care happens when policy is made with them. The street can be a territory of violence, but also of reinvention.
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Coverage of 22 October 2025
- International round table: What kind of world is this? Realities and possibilities of transformation for the social protection of the homeless population
- Panel I : We are not invisible: information for public policies
- Panel II : Homeless women: comprehensive care, maternity and social protection from the perspective of gender and race equality
- Trails invites: Fr Julio Lancellotti
- Panel III:
The right to social protection and health care in Brazil.
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