Women's Police Station: 30 years fighting violence
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“I told him I was very afraid of my husband, I was afraid he would kill me. The chief of police said 'he'll kill you anyway, whether he's detained or out of jail.'”
“He used to do things to frighten me, took the carving knife, kicked me, gave me punches, blows, he had an ax too, that he wanted to throw on my head,” says Cássia (fictitious name at interviewee's request), now 37, on the last assault scene led by her ex-husband, whom she married at 17. He was ten years older and used it as an excuse to teach her a “lesson,” among them there were death threats with a gun up to her head.
The physical violence began only two years after the wedding. “I stayed because he apologized, we were recently married, he cried, and said it would never happen again,” she reported. After the first assault, many others were committed, justified by jealousy. She believed he was trying to protect her.
The last episode of violence happened on Cássia's birthday in 2012. She had never looked for a police station to denounce him, but, that day, the woman who was her neighbor for 12 years heard the screams and called the police.
She was taken to a regular police station, and mentions that when she said she was afraid, the chief of police played down the problem:
“I told him I was very afraid of my husband, I was afraid he would kill me. The chief of police said 'he'll kill you anyway, whether he's detained or out of jail.'”
Women's complaints about the care provided in regular police stations, where they were usually heard by men, have motivated the creation of the first women's defense police station, 30 years ago in São Paulo. Secretary of Public Security of the state at the time, vice president Michel Temer says he received a group of women complaining about the police station services. “When they complained about their partners assault or sexual violence, they received an inadequate treatment, such as 'maybe it's your fault,'” notes Temer.
After this meeting, the Secretariat of Public Security decided to create the women's defense police station, in the central zone of São Paulo. The idea, explains Temer, was that this police station would be composed “by a woman as chief of police, some women as police clerks and many women as investigators to serve women who were abused in their most fundamental rights.”
The purpose of the Women's Defense Police Station was to receive victims of physical and sexual violence committed by strangers, in order to give them a more humanized and sympathetic treatment. The teamwork, however, was surprised by another demand: victims assaulted by their own partners, as Cássia's case.
Pioneering
First woman as special chief of police for women, Rosmary Corrêa mentions that this was the first public policy directed to victims of violence in Brazil. “The idea was to provide an adequate space for women, where they would be received by other women, they would feel more comfortable talking about the issue,” she noted. Currently there are nine women's police stations only in the city of São Paulo and 130 throughout the state.
From the creation of the police station, the government begin to see the violence women suffered, as for physical assaults, discrimination and abuse. To fully meet their needs, a social care area within the police station was created, in addition to a shelter for women who could not go back home due to fear of being killed by their husbands. “It all started to appear after the reality of many women inside their houses was shown,” said Rosmary Corrêa.
For her, one of the station accomplishments was to show that domestic violence was not something normal and that there was the possibility of denunciation. “We had to show to the aggressor that to hit his wife, even though the wife was his, was a crime and would be treated as a crime,” she notes.
Gislaine Doraide Ribeiro Pato, who was also chief of police in the state of São Paulo and now coordinates all police stations, highlights that at the time domestic violence was something invisible. It happened behind closed doors and there was no opening or encourage for denouncements come to light. “It was the first public policy carried out in women's benefit. It was a breakthrough, a milestone, an action that shone,” she highlighted.
She explains that, even nowadays, several factors have prevented women from denouncing the abusive partner. There is the fear of family disapproval in cases of divorce and the fear of losing their children's custody. They also present emotional fragility and are financially dependent, in addition to threatening situations. “These are factors that still prevail and block women to get out of these ties, and end everything that keep them in the position of victim” she pointed out.
Family tradition was the main obstacle, as in Cássia's case. “My father didn't want me to split up, so I had to stay,” she mentions. During the episodes of violence, she says that her husband himself would invite her family to tell them the “wrong things” she had done and, therefore, she had been hit. “My father blamed me every time and ran his hand over my husband's head," she says.
Only at 34, 17 years after her marriage, she was able to end the cycle of violence in which she lived.
“I couldn't see any solution. I began to want to do something because a month before two women had died due to assaults and I cried a lot. I recall it because I told myself, 'imagine, my children will be on TV, talking about me, who would look after them? Their father would be in jail and me, dead,'” noted Cássia.
With the help of a friend and a lawyer, she made her ex-husband leave the house. A protective measure, which has its effects until today, obliges him to be at least 500 meters away from her and the house where she lives with her three children.
Challenges
For the vice president Michel Temer, there was substantial progress in combating violence against women in the last 30 years. He gives some examples, including the Maria da Penha Law (2006), which creates legal mechanisms to restrain and prevent domestic violence, and the Brazilian Women's House (Casa da Mulher Brasileira), which brings together under the same roof services to women victims of violence, such as chief of police, court, public defender and psychosocial .
However, he its that there are still challenges to be overcome to change the scenario of violence against women. “Are there weaknesses? Of course there are. But we are overcoming them in a higher speed than 30 or 40 years ago. It's a continuous evolution.”
Chief of Police since 1994, Gislaine Pato points out the challenges to be faced. “We need to give and try to strengthen these women who are vulnerable. I believe there are very good laws, including the Maria da Penha Law. There is the constitutional provision that everyone is equal, but in practice we still need to promote this equality and we are moving towards that,” she says.
According to Ana Paula Lewin, coordinator of the Center of Promotion and Defense of Women's Rights in the Public Defense Office of São Paulo, the Maria da Penha Law, which celebrates 9 years on Friday (Aug. 7), has already become a reality. “The law is enforced nowadays. We still face many barriers, we run into a lot of difficulty. The service isn't the best yet, but we can never fail to recognize that it's a legal instrument that really works and foremost it encourages women to seek help,” she pointed out.
In Ana Paula's view, the urgent protective measures, predicted in the law, are important tools to immediately address domestic violence. The measures include police protection, forwarding the victims to the hospital and monitoring the removal of personal belongings from the house they shared with their partners. “We don't even need to discuss whether the woman will take further steps, if the criminal proceedings will be taken, but it's a measure to quickly end the cycle of violence and enable women to end violence,” she said.
Statistics
Every two hours, a Brazilian woman is killed in a violent situation. One in five women claim to have suffered some type of violence from a man. The data are part of the Dossier on Violence against Women, an online multimedia platform launched on Wednesday (Aug. 5) by Patrícia Galvão Institute.
In the city of São Paulo, where Cássia suffered the assault, the records of violence against women have risen 10.4 percent in June this year compared to the same period last year, with 1,779 police reports.
In the state of São Paulo, there was a drop of 8 percent in the number of police reports for the same period. In June 2014, there were 10,585 reports. In 2015 the number decreased to 9,742 reports. In the city, the most significant reports, in June 2015, concerned cases of threat (759 records) and aggravated assault (716). In the state, there were respectively 4,614 and 3,752 reports on these cases. Both crimes are together responsible for 83 percent of police reports in the city of São Paulo. In the state, this proportion is even higher and reaches 85.9 percent.
From Brasília, Ana Cristina Campos contributed to this article.
Translated by Amarílis Anchieta
Fonte: Women's Police Station: 30 years fighting violence
