Mônica Benício

Benício was born in Conjunto Esperança, one of the 16 favelas of the Complexo da Maré neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.^[3] In 2004, she graduated from local schools and matriculated in the community pre-vestibular at the Centro de Estudos e Ações Solidárias da Maré (CEASM). In 2007, she began graduate studies in psychology, two years after transferring to the Architecture and Urbanism school of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, PUC-Rio.^[4]

In 2014, she graduated, her graduate thesis being comUNIDADE - Requalification of the Area of Conflict in the Favela of Maré. In 2019, she presented her masters dissertation at the same university, titled Every world. Just one world. A Maré of the city: violence, public spaces, and urban intervention.

In 2020, she was elected councilwoman for the city of Rio de Janeiro, being the 11th most voted for candidate. She ran on a feminist, antifascist, and people-centered campaign.^[5]

In 2022, law 7291/2022, put together by Benício, came into effect, which instituted the Municipal Program of Confronting Femicide. The law, which confronts and attempts to prevent femicide.^[6] That same year, she proposed a law that established the Municipal Day of Lesbian Visibility, which came into effect later that year. The law was originally proposed by her partner Marielle Franco and had presented the proposed law in the Municipal Chamber in 2017, but it had been voted down e apresentado em 2017 quando foi derrotado no plenário da Câmara Municipal.^[7] She is also the author of law 7326/2022 that instituted the Program of Support and Welcoming of LGBTQIA+ People to address the violence against and the social vulnerability of LGBTQIA+ people, through different means to help.^[8]