Australia - Brazil Partnership & Exchange

About this project 

This partnership and exchange seeks to strengthen technical and academic exchanges with Brazil by developing a collaborative domestic violence research network.

Brazil is recognised as a leader in family violence prevention, particularly policies and laws addressing femicide (the gendered killing of women, most commonly intimate partner homicide) as well as for their Women’s Police Stations. Family violence is receiving unprecedented funding and policy attention in Australia. Victoria’s Royal Commission into Family Violence (2016) and the commitment to implement its 229 recommendations was the harbinger of a program of transformative change designed to end gendered and family violence. Australia’s reputation as a world leader in family violence policy is reflected in the Centre’s international reputation. The Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre’s involvement in implementing the reforms recommended by the Royal Commission is being looked to internationally with the Centre as a key partner and participant in the exchange.

Phase One

The first phase of the exchange took place in June 2019. The Australian Embassy in Brazil funded five leading gender and family violence prevention experts to travel to Brazil and engage in a program of visits to family violence and criminal justice agencies. Professor Jude McCulloch (MGFVPC), Dr Heather Nancarrow (CEO, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety), Professor Kerry Carrington (Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology), Dr Lisa Harris (Public Policy, RMIT) and Dr Jasmine McGowan (MGFVPC), were the Australian delegates. They participated in a series of academic and public forums and presentations with Brazilian experts, including:

• Meeting with prosecutors, judges, police and local services in Saõ Paulo to hear about their work preventing violence against women
• Presenting alongside Brasilian experts on the possibilities for the Brasil-Australia research collaboration network on GFV prevention policies
• Meeting with the Police Commissioner and members from the 6th Women’s Police Station in São Paulo
• Presenting on key policies for preventing violence against women
• Discussing national approaches to the prevention of violence against women at the Institute of Applied Economic Research and the Women’s Observatory at the Brasilia Federal Senate

Phase Two

The second phase of the exchange took place in December 2019 when the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre hosted a delegation of family violence experts from Brazil. The visit was sponsored by the Australian Embassy in Brazil and funded by the Council on Australia Latin America Relations (COALAR) within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Eight delegates from the government, non-government, academic and justice-sectors visited Australia. The Brazilian delegation spent a week in Melbourne from the 9-13 December. During their stay they visited numerous organisations and participated in a number of events including:

• The Academy of Social Sciences in Australia workshop on adolescent family violence
• Victoria Police Family Violence Simulation Centre
• Victoria Police Family Violence Command
• OurWatch
• Victorian Legal Aid
• Family Safety Victoria
• Respect Victoria
• Sexual Offences Child Abuse Investigative Teams (SOCIT), Dandenong Multi-disciplinary Centre
• Bendigo Family Violence Refuge (Annie North)
• Centre for Non-Violence, Bendigo
• Loddon Campaspe CASA (LCCASA), Bendigo

Key Outputs

Reflections on prevention policies for gender based violence against women and girls: Debates in Brazil and Australia (2020) 
Edited by, Thiago Pierobom de Ávila, Aline Yamamoto, Cristina Elsner de Faria, Jude McCulloch, Kerry Carrington

• This publication is also available in Portuguese translation. Access via the MPDFT website here.

11 February, Monash Lens
McGowan, J., McCulloch, J. & Maher, JM. (2020). ‘Domestic violence: What we can learn from Brazil’.