Violence against women is a global policy issue with significant social, economic and personal consequences. Prevention is the key to eliminating violence against women,  yet discovering how to prevent gender violence has been elusive. This website provides resources, research, briefs, publications, photos and videos about how Women’s Police Stations – a unique invention from Latin America – respond to and prevent gender violence.

You can download a short brief about the project here: QUT Centre for Justice Briefing Paper April 2020

This study aims to discover how women’s police stations in Argentina respond to and prevent gender violence, and what lessons other countries can learn. The province of Buenos Aires has 128 women’s police stations that employ around 2300 officers who responded to around 250,000 cases of domestic violence, and over 7000 cases of sexual assault in 2018.

The study is funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant 2018-2021 (DP180101241).

Stage 1: How do Specialist Police Stations prevent and respond to gender violence?

Prevention

Our research has discovered that Women’s Police Stations in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina prevent gender violence by:

  • Working with women to prevent re-victimization
  • Networking with local community organisations and neighbourhoods to transform social norms that underpin gender violence
  • Collaborating with other government agencies in an integrated way to prevent gender violence

Report: The role of Women’s Police Stations in responding to and preventing Gender Violence: Stage 1 Report of ARC project.

This is the first report of the role of women’s police stations in Argentina in responding to and preventing gender violence, based on field research conducted in Argentina in 2018. Find out more

Access to justice

Our research has discovered that Women’s Police Stations in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina widen women’s access to justice by:

  • Being situated in accessible, brightly painted houses in the local community
  • Providing family and female friendly reception areas
  • Providing childcare and children friendly spaces
  • Empowering women to make decisions about whether or not to report gender violence
  • Providing women with a gate-way to other services, such as health, welfare, family, housing, legal and counselling support
  • Working in a team with lawyers, social workers and psychologists to assist women who report to them.

Research paper: The role of women’s police stations in widening access to justice and eliminating gender violence.

This paper was presented to the United Nations 63rd Commission on the Status of Women, NGO Sessions, on 21 March 2019. Find out more

Stage 2: How can Australia improve the policing of gender violence?

Stage 2 of the research project is focused on what can be learned from these unique approaches in Argentina to improve the policing and prevention of gender violence in Australia. For a summary of the Stage 2 report read the Briefing Paper.

The full report is also available on ePrints.