ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR WOMEN SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF WOMEN’S POLICE STATIONS IN LATIN AMERICA

PROJECT SYNOPSIS

This groundbreaking research project will examine women’s access to justice in Latin America, with a particular focus on the impact of the Women’s Police Stations (WPS). Since the first WPS opened in São Paulo, Brazil in 1985, they can now be found in 13 Latin American countries, while more countries offer other specialized policing services. In a region where most countries have laws on domestic and sexual violence, but few have specialized state services or public policies, the WPS have been at the forefront of providing access to justice and eliminating violence against women.

They are concrete responses to women’s movement demands as well as states’ national and international obligations acquired through laws and conventions, such as the CEDAW and the Inter-American Convention for the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belén do Pará). The WPS have gained in popularity throughout the region: more countries offer these services, more WPS continue to be opened in countries where they already exist and reportings at WPS increase yearly on average. They provide specialized services, including staffing the WPS with specially trained, mostly women, officers, and – depending on the model – coordination with other centres and institutions to provide legal and psychological services. Many of the women who use these services are poor or marginalized, who would otherwise not have access to specialized policing or other services and would have to face the possibility of revictimization by non-specialized police, if they decided to press charges. The WPS were one of the first state mechanisms to address violence against women created in each of these countries and they continue to be the most important entry point for accessing justice.