PHR’s work in Brazil began in 1990 after an excavation at Dom Bosco Cemetery near Sao Paulo uncovered the bodies of seven political dissidents who had disappeared during the 1970s, along with more than 1,000 other bodies.
A PHR consultant joined forensic anthropologists and other experts in the investigation in Brazil at the request of local human rights groups. PHR’s work revealed that forensic pathologists at Sao Paulo’s Medicolegal Institute had failed to report torture and murder by Brazil’s security forces. The findings are discussed in the 1991 report “The Search for Brazil’s Disappeared.” The report also offered Brazil suggestions to improve its forensic capacities and to safeguard against the kinds of human rights abuses that took place under the military dictatorship.
