| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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There is no service in the Brazilian justice system equal to ours. We are the only Public Defender's Office in the country managing a Human Rights Reference Center, so much so that in 2016 we received the Human Rights Award of the Presidency of the Republic, in the category of Access to Justice, Combating Violence and Public Safety. We innovate by expanding our service, which must be juridical and integral, not only judiciary. That is, from mere follow-up of the process itself, to a integral care to address gender and state violence, through multidisciplinary service, judicial and extra-judicial actions, as well as education and contribution to the formulation of public policies, given the engagement and representation exercised in the Municipal and State Councils of rights and the articulation with the network and civil society as a whole.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The Public Defender's Office of Rio Grande do Sul, as an autonomous institution that participates in the justice system (Article 134 §2 of the Federal Constitution [CRFB / 88]), is permanent and essential to the jurisdictional function of the State, fundamentally in charge, as an expression and instrument of the democratic regime, of the promotion of human rights and full and free legal guidance at all levels, both individually and collectively.
In the performance of its functions, it is incumbent upon it, among others things, to promote the diffusion and awareness of human rights, citizenship and legal order, and to defend women victims of domestic and family violence. Thus, the Public Defender's Office has, beyond an institutional duty, a constitutional mandate to promote awareness about the legal order and, as it were, to raise awareness of basic rights of citizenship and human rights.
With this in mind, in partnership with the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, it implemented the Human Rights Reference Center (CRDH-DPE/RS), strengthening its institutional mission to promote information and culture of human rights, guaranteeing the widening of the conditions of access to justice for citizens who are victims of violence, especially violence against women and state violence.
The target audience for the actions developed by the CRDH-DPE/RS covers victims of prejudice, discrimination, intolerance, ill-treatment, neglect and abandonment, especially women in situations of domestic violence and victims of state violence (mainly perpetrated by the justice and public security system). The main beneficiaries are minority groups, people in social vulnerability, women, children, adolescents, the elderly, indigenous people, black people, the LGBT population, refugees, migrants, among others. Indirectly, it aims to reach the families of the victims, community leaders, government agencies and agents in charge of the implementation of human rights and citizenship, civil society organizations that act on human rights and citizens in general.
Regarding numerical data, since its opening until February 28, 2017, the CRDH-DPE/RS has already performed 7683 attendings for about 2040 people.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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In order to implement an innovative service and in accordance with its institutional responsibilities, the Public Defender's Office in 2013, when it became aware of an action plan developed by the Federal Government for the implementation of Human Rights Centers, proposed the present partnership. Thus, the agreement between the Public Defender's Office of the State of Rio Grande do Sul and the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic was signed on December 26, 2013, for a period of 12 months, with the possibility of being renewed for the same amount of time.
In this agreement was stipulated the payment of a sum in the amount of R $ 200,000.00 by the Federal Government and R $ 24,000.00 by the Public Defender, as a counterpart, for the implementation of this Center. This money was destined to the purchase of patrimonies and materials for improvement in the architecture of the building, to better serve the people. Furthermore, in relation to the budget, it should be noted that it was paid in a single installment and if not used in its entirety, it should be returned to the Federal Government.
For the execution of the actions, the CRDH-DPE/RS has a staff of public servants of the Public Defender's Office, composed of Overall Coordinator, Executive Coordinator, Process Analyst, Administrative Technicians, Public Defender, Psychologist, Social Worker and interns in three areas (Law, Psychology and Social Service), all paid by the Public Defender's Office.
The activities planned in the work plan, executed in the first year, included: the structuring and installation of the physical space; Team composition; Strategic planning and action definition, mapping of the assistance network, capacity building of the team, conducting lectures, articulating with the actions and projects in execution to implement the national human rights plan and the national human rights education plan through participation in the state and municipal committees of the human rights system, in addition to integral and confidential services (carried out by Psychologist, Social Worker and/or Public Defender), human rights education, itinerant actions and publications of relevant human rights material.
Regarding the monitoring of the service, the CRDH-DPE/RS is obliged to register the attendances and to prepare reports of accountability periodically for evaluation and inspection by the Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic. In addition, on-site visits are carried out by the Secretariat.
Moreover, the effectiveness of the actions carried out is evaluated based on the beneficiaries' reviews, as well as the information provided by the articulation with the public policies network, insofar as a significant number of people has been attended and monitored over the course of several months. Such reviews bring to the team evidence regarding subjective empowerment, the rescue and exercise of citizenship, the resumption of the capacity to participate in decision making in the personal and social sphere, and, consequently, the expansion of one's own autonomy.
In fact, after the first year of activities, there have been three further extensions of the agreement and, it is intended that the CRDH-DPE/RS be maintained as a permanent public policy of access to justice and education in Human Rights.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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The Public Defender's Office of Rio Grande do Sul, through its administration, public servants involved with the work in the CRDH-DPE/RS and the Center for Studies, Training and Improvement of Public Defender's Office. The Human Rights Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, through the Overall Coordination of Reference Centers. The initiative was also supported by the NGO Themis, which aims to address discrimination against women in the justice system.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The CRDH-DPE/RS has consolidated itself as a reference in its work with Human Rights. This is evidenced by the increase in demand for the service and the relationship of trust we have with civil society. Participation in the services network and in municipal and state councils and committees reveals the influence of CRDH-DPE/RS in the preparation and monitoring of public policies. The Police Violence Diagnosis, carried out in partnership with an university, shows that we are reference in confronting this subject. Recently, because we deal with the issue of state and police violence in the three possible areas of public agents' accountability (civil, administrative and criminal), we obtained sentences of provenance in cases in which reparation was sought for the violence and the serious violation of human rights suffered by the victims, in one of these cases the victims were two Senegalese immigrant students. In the context of gender equality, we are also obtaining, through judicial process, the recognition of rights of name and gender in the civil registry of the transsexual/transgender population. We also work to include victims and witnesses in protection programs, including the Human Rights Defenders Protection Program. Combating violence against women, we have helped, in an interdisciplinary way, several women to break the cycle of violence and empower themselves to follow their lives free from all forms of oppression. So much so that none of the people cared at CRDH-DPE/RS died.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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The Public Defender's Office is an institution that was created in 1988, with the edition of a Federal Constitution that brought to the country a redemocratization project, but only in 2004, and in the case of the State of Rio Grande do Sul in 2006, reaches Financial-administrative-budgetary autonomy. However, its budget comes from the amount of the State, therefore, the amounts that are spent, in relation to other governmental units and institutions such as the Public Prosecutor's Office, are really small, which is why in 2014 the Federal Constitution was emended, requiring expansion of the Public Defender's Offices in the country, including the presence of Public Defenders in all the existing judicial districts. It is known that the Public Defender’s Office has the mission of implementing the human right of access to justice, with that in mind more than one agreement was signed before the OAS, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court. The budget of the Public Defender's Office of Rio Grande do Sul represents only 7% of the budget of the justice system, compared with the Public Prosecutor's Office with 22% and the Judiciary with 70%. In this sense, the agreement signed with the Human Rights Secretariat is aimed at overcoming this obstacle, due to the financial assistance, although small because of the size of the demand.
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