Brazil’s president slams opposition for criticizing remarks he made about Venezuelan girls

By Bala Chambers

BUENOS AIRES (AA) - Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro condemned the country’s opposition on Sunday for criticizing him over comments he made which they said implied that some Venezuelan teenagers he had visited in their home were prostitutes.

The opposition denounced the president's remarks as "depraved," saying they suggested that the girls, whom he described meeting last year in a poor neighborhood of Brazil’s capital, had turned to prostitution to survive.

In the podcast interview that was aired Friday by local media, Bolsonaro recounted that he stopped his motorbike “on a corner, took off my helmet and looked at some pretty girls, three or four, 14-15 years old." He said he asked them if he could enter their home.

"Once inside, he said he found around 15-20 Venezuelan girls "getting ready on Saturday. What for? To make a living."

He made the comments while discussing the economic situation in Venezuela.

Following the opposition’s remarks, Bolsonaro took to social media to rebuff accusations of pedophilia and tolerating child prostitution.

During a live broadcast, Bolsonaro said he was "shocked" to learn about the opposition's criticism, referencing recent comments describing him as "a cannibal" after a 2016 interview with the New York Times resurfaced in which he claimed while discussing visiting an indigenous community in the country that practiced cannibalism that he would "eat an Indian, no problem at all.”

However, the Brazilian leader described the latest criticism as "beyond all limits.”

"How disrespectful is this? I have always fought pedophilia. I have always been against the Venezuelan regime, I accompany with pain, with suffering, the families that flee from Venezuela to Brazil,” he said.

Bolsonaro has been drumming up fears ahead of the presidential election that Brazil could become like Venezuela if opposition candidate and former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wins.

Brazilians are set to cast their ballots in a second-round presidential runoff on Oct. 30 in the most polarizing election race in recent decades as both political parties continue to hit out at one another in the runup to the vote.