Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday signed a new law to expand the country’s affirmative action policies, increasing the quota for government jobs reserved for Blacks from 20% to 30% and adding Indigenous people and descendants of Afro-Brazilian enslaved people as beneficiaries.
The changes apply to candidates applying for permanent and public employment positions across Brazil's federal administration, agencies, public foundations, public companies and state-run mixed-capital companies. As approved by Congress, the quota will be revised in 2035.
“It is important to allow this country for one day to have a society reflected in its public offices, in the Prosecutors' Office, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the Attorney-General’s Office, in the Internal Revenue Service, everywhere,” Lula said at the presidential palace in the capital, Brasilia. “We still have few women, few Black people, almost no Indigenous people."
