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Across the world, and particularly in developing countries
there are serious problems of insecurity from violence amongst ordinary people.
And I understand that's true in Brazil too.
Yes, Brazil does have a high level of violence
and that includes gender-based violence, femnicide
which is the murder of women, generally by their partners or ex-partners,
sexual violence.
There's a real desire in Brazil by the police forces to figure out
how they can tackle this better and be more effective
at preventing that violence and responding to victims.
Now, I have researched for the last three decades on Latin America
and Brazil, on gender-based violence, on the impact of women's groups,
on public policy, on the reform processes
within justice and security institutions, particularly the police.
So what I did was I brought together that research to work with police officers
in a way that would produce a training manual that they could use
that would help them really understand what gender-based violence is and how best
to respond to victims of that gender-based violence,
both to assist them and to prevent further violence.
How did you get started on that?
Because often research, it's hard to get local engagement.
So, how did how did you start at the local level or with particular police forces?
I have worked for several years in collaboration
with an organisation called the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety
and they bring together reform-minded
police officers, policy makers and academics.
And they are very well networked right across the country
for although Brazil
is a decentralised country and has many different police forces,
The Forum becomes the place where people who want to make
a difference come together and discuss how to do it.
So with a colleague from The Forum, we began testing the methodology
for a manual, working with local police, listening to what they said in feedback,
so eventually we produced a 120 page training manual
so that police could train their trainers to train their colleagues,
and it was that network, that collaboration that allowed us
to reach police officers from the Amazon right down to the south of Brazil.
It's so important to work with local partners
both official and these civil institutions, isn't it?
So how has it been taken up? Has it been used widely?
Yes, there's been a very positive response to the manual.
Many local police services have taken it up to do local training.
Most recently, a state in the south of Brazil
has trained 460 police officers.
The officers who work in specialist domestic violence patrols
who visit and follow up with victims after they've reported to the police.
And that went so well
there was such a positive response from those officers to the kinds of interactive
and reflective methodologies in the manual
that now they are recommending to the National Council of Police Chiefs
that this methodology, this manual, should be used nationally
to train police around gender based violence.
That's great.
I mean, one of the most important things is to recognise that training is useful on
its own terms, but it's when it empowers those people that want change
that it makes a real difference
and it seems as if that's been happening in Brazil.
I understand also that this has been taken up internationally.
This is an international problem.
There's been programmes related to the safety of girls in cities.
Yes. I wrote a shorter version of this manual
for a charity - an NGO called Plan International.
They're global.
They work around the world specifically looking at the problems that girls face.
So they're Safer Cities for Girls programme
is designed to train
local police officers and transport officials and others
as to how girls can be protected from sexual harassment in urban settings.
So the shorter version of the manual is being used in places
as diverse as India, Cambodia, Egypt and Central America to do just that.
And this is very important that every context is different
and so how you can use the same resources but empower different people.
They may be municipal leaders or local communities or others
that can affect violence against women as well as the local police.
Yes, both the manuals are designed explicitly
to be very easy to use and designed to raise the awareness,
and the competence and the capacity of all kinds of local actors.
And that could be police officers
it could be justice officials, local women's groups, local authorities,
and my experience is that that's exactly what's being done.
That's the way that these manuals are now being used.