Brazil’s president apologizes for remarks about Venezuelan girls

By Bala Chambers

BUENOS AIRES (AA) - Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro apologized Tuesday over remarks he made while recounting a meeting he had last year with a group of Venezuelan girls in a poor neighborhood of the capital Sao Paulo which had drawn sharp criticism from the country’s opposition.

On Sunday, opposition officials condemned the far-right incumbent's remarks, which they said implied that some Venezuelan teenagers he had visited in their home had turned to prostitution to survive.

Bolsonaro shared a video online Tuesday showing him standing alongside his wife and first lady Michelle Bolsonaro and Maria Teresa Belandria, the Venezuelan opposition representative in Brazil.

At the start of the video, he took aim at the left-wing opposition, claiming they were seeking to gain "political advantage" ahead of a second-round runoff vote in the presidential election on Oct. 30.

"If my words, which were taken out of context in bad faith, were somehow misunderstood or caused discomfort to our Venezuelan sisters, I apologize, as my commitment was always for the best -- to embrace and serve everyone fleeing dictatorships anywhere in the world," said Bolsonaro.

In the roughly two-and-a-half minute video, he said his former women's minister, Damares Alves, and the first lady had visited the Venezuelan girls on Tuesday and found that they were not sex workers and were rebuilding their lives in Brazil.

Bolsonaro has faced a strong backlash online in the aftermath of his comments. But ahead of the second round of the presidential vote, he managed to stop the opposition from using any part of the interview for political ads.

In the podcast interview, which 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, drumming up fears ahead of the second-round presidential vote that Brazil could become like Venezuela if opposition candidate and former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wins.

On Sunday, following condemnation from the opposition, who labelled his remarks as "depraved," Bolsonaro took to social media to rebuff accusations of pedophilia and tolerating child prostitution, describing the accusations as "beyond all limits.”

Brazil is believed to be home to around 260,000 Venezuelan refugees and migrants who have fled the socioeconomic crisis engulfing their home country.