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1. The organization

The organizations which implemented the human rights strategy investigated and analyzed in this report are CLADEM, the Latin American and Caribbean Committe for the Defense of Woman’s Rights and CEJIL, Center for Justice and International Law, by their national sections in Brazil.

CLADEM, the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights, is a women's and women's organizations network that in Latin America and the Caribbean are committed in unite efforts to achieve an effective defense of women's rights in the region. CLADEM is a non-governmental organization - with consulting status before the United Nations since 1995, and its equivalent before the Organization of the American States since 2002 - being structured as a regional network with representation in 16 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. It was formally founded in the region in 1987, and it begins it activities in Brazil in 1992.

As a large spider web, it forms a network that articulates organizations and individuals committed in the defense and promotion of Women's Rights through different activities: formulating legislative proposals, researching, training, litigating, teaching at universities, informing, communicating and exercising solidarity actions.

Institutional Vision: Contribute from a feminist perspective to the construction of real democracies with social justice, free of discrimination and with full exercise of human rights.

Institutional Mission: Regional organization that articulates individuals and non governmental organizations from Latin America and the Caribbean for the promotion, vigilance and defense of the interdependent and integral women's human rights from the social and juridical scope, with a feminist perspective in a dynamic that interconnect the local, regional and international levels.

Thematic Axis: To work women's human rights from an ethnic-racial perspective, with special emphasis in:

• The economic, social and cultural rights and globalization

• The full citizenship participation

• The sexual rights and the reproductive rights and

• The right to a free of violence life
  
  

CEJIL, the Center for Justice and International Law, is a non-governmental organization founded in 1991 by a group of prominent human rights defenders in Latin America and the Caribbean. CEJIL's principle objective is to achieve the full implementation of international human rights norms in the member States of the Organization of American States (OAS) through the use of the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights and other international protection mechanisms. CEJIL’s mandate is fulfilled through work in three program areas: the Legal Defense Program, the Training and Dissemination Program, and the Campaign to Strengthen the Inter-American System.

A central component of its work is the defense of human rights before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ("the Commission") and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ("the Court”). CEJIL is the first organization to offer an integrated program of defense, free legal consulting, education and oversight of the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights. Our docket, consisting of more than 200 hundred cases, is the largest and most diverse in the hemisphere. In addition, CEJIL is acting as representative of the victims and as legal advisers to the Commission, in practically all the cases pending before the Court. CEJIL selects representative cases that exemplify a systemic pattern of abuse and whose resolution could impact the implementation of international human rights norms be it through its effect on the areas of law, domestic practices, individuals cases or state policies.

Since its first years, CEJIL has stood out for taking on important and illustrative cases of human rights abuses, as well as for the legal advice it provides to the NGO's in the region. Because the majority of activity related to the Inter-American System is centered around the OAS headquarters and the Inter-American Commission in Washington, DC, which is also the location of CEJIL’s lead office. CEJIL also operates an office in San José, Costa Rica, the site of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as well as a third office in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In addition to these offices, CEJIL retains representatives in Santiago, Chile, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Asunción, Paraguay. In this way, CEJIL covers the entire hemisphere, handling cases and giving workshops in nearly every country each year.

2. Identifying the issue

The problem identified and addressed was the impunity regarding domestic violence against women in Brazil, specially due to the ineffective judicial action at national level in punishing the aggressors and repairing the women’s human rights abused/violated in cases like that.

The issue was chosen due to the fact this is one of the most relevant problem related to discrimination and violence against women in the country, even they are protected by the national constitution and the international legislations on women’s human rights ratified by Brazil.

It is a very complex problem in Brazil, in terms of the substance of the law (specially due to the lack of an specific national legislation on domestic violence with a gender perspective), the structure of the law (how the law is applied and enforced through the courts, specially related to the structure of the legal system and how legal institutions and agents have been unable to respond to this problem) and the culture of the law (how people think and behave toward the law, focusing in the aspects of culture that have legal implications, specially in the manner in which those who administer the law have been conditioned to regard the law) 1/.

But in this especific case, choosing the issue and the strategies and activities to be addressed by the two involved organizations was much more related to the focus on the problem of the structure of the law, reflected, for sure, by the culture of the law and the substance of law. However, the most evident aspect in the issue chosen was related to the enforcement of the law under the national legal system.

Including, it is important to stress that the two involved organizations in this report – the national sections of CLADEM and CEJIL - had already established previous alliances to face the problem, sending two concrete cases on impunity regarding domestic violence against women at national level to the Interamerican Comission of Human Rights (OAS), without being successfull.

But the idea of implementing again a same kind of strategy came when another concrete case on impunity regarding to domestic violence against women was presented to Maria Beatriz Galli, when she was the responsible lawyer for the national section of CEJIL in Brazil. The case came to her through the Human Rights Comission of the House of Deputies of the State of Ceará, in the northeast of Brazil. There was a person linked to this institution who was attending with her a training program on the interamerican system at CEJIL, around 1998, and presented the case at the end of the course, so that maybe CEJIL could send this case to the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights. Then, Maria Beatriz Galli was able to know about the case, read the judicial process that already existed at national level and the book that the victim of this case wrote, as well as establish contact with the victim.

As CEJIL and CLADEM in Brazil had already worked on other individual cases like that, Maria Beatriz Galli proposed to CLADEM-Brasil to think about the possibility of sending together this specific case to the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights, taking into account the delay of the judicial system in solving the problem at national level.

This partnership had a potential success since would be carried out by two highly respected organizations in the region, one of them with a recognized knowledge on the issue of women’s rights, including domestic violence against women (CLADEM), and the other with a large, specific and oriented work developed within the interamerican system of human rights (CEJIL).

The individual case, of course, was concerning the impunity regarding domestic violence against women in Brazil, due to the ineffective judicial action at national level in punishing the aggressor related to an attempt of murder that he practiced against his own wife.

Resume of the case: On May 29, 1983, Mrs. Maria da Penha Fernandes, pharmacist by profession, was victim in her domicile in Fortaleza, State of Ceara, of attempted murder on the part of her then husband, Mr. Marco Antonio Heredia Viveiros, economist by profession, who shot her with a gun (firearm, revolver) while she was sleeping. As a result of this aggression, Mrs. Fernandes suffers irreversible paraplegia and other traumas both physical and psychological. The husband tried to cover up the aggression by reporting it as a robbery attempt and aggressions by thieves who ran away. The case took 8 years in arriving at the Jury decision, which on May 4, 1991, dictated a condemning sentence against Mr. Heredia Viveiros to fifteen years’ imprisonment, reduced to ten for not having been previously condemned. The defense presented a recourse appeal against the Jury’s decision. On March 15, 1996 a second trial by Jury took place, in which Mr. Heredia Viveiros was condemned to ten years and six months in prison. The defense presented new appeal and since then successive resources have been presented and due to the delay of the judicial system was not possible to achieve a final decision on this crime. The Brazilian justice had taken more than fifteen years without arriving at a definitive sentence against the former husband of Mrs. Fernandes, in liberty during all this time in spite of the gravity of the accusation and the number of evidences against him, and in spite of the gravity of the offenses against Mrs. Fernandes.

Taking into account the nature of the problem and the specific test case to be addressed, one of the most visible strategy option for solving this problem was really to send the case to an international body of human rights. So, in 1998, CLADEM and CEJIL decided to face the problem and implement the strategy by sending jointly an individual complaint to the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights on this case, within the representation of the victim, Maria da Penha.

This case, for sure, did not represent an isolated situation in Brazil, on the contrary, it was an example of the systematic pattern of domestic violence against women cases in Brazil and the impunity related to them, since the majority of the complaints never become criminal processes and of the few that come to process, only the minority sentences the perpetrators.

The initial challenges were to take advantage of the previous experiences in litigating at the international level being able to succeed with this case. It means, the case should be very well prepared, in order to be admitted by the Commission and maybe become an emblematic case on domestic violence, so it could pressure the national government to respond to this human rights violation and provoke significant changes, specially at the national legal system.

Another important fact to be challenge was that the crime had happened before the ratification by the Brazilian State of the American Convention on Human Rights (Pacto de San José) and the Interamerican Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women (Convention of Belém do Pará), the international legal basis for the complaint. The Brazilian had ratified the Pacto de San José in 1992, and the Convention of Belém do Pará in 1995, and the crime happened in 1983. By the way, the organizations invested in the thesis of the concept of continued violation, taking into account that the State - for not being able to conclude the criminal process with a final sentence regarding the perpetrator, neither arresting the aggressor and repairing the violated rights of the victim - was still violating the human rights of the victim and not accomplishing with its duty to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women perpetrated by a non-State actor, at private sphere.

3. Investigating the issue and using the human rights framework

A large number of studies, investigations, actions and human rights advocacy strategies related to domestic violence against women has been taken by different social and political actors at national, regional and international levels. Apropos, CLADEM in Brazil, as well in all countries of Latin American and Caribbean in which develop its actions, has worked hard for the last decades under different strategies to face the problem of domestic violence against women.

The two involved organizations had already a lot of materials researched on the problem of the systematic pattern of domestic violence in the country and its impunity under the judicial system, including because they had already done it for sending the previous cases to the Intermaerican Comission as mentioned before.

Besides the diverse national and international documents researched, some of the important findings were the Human Rights Watch Report on Brazil, of 1991, focusing on domestic violence and honour killings, pointing out, for instance, that 70% of the violence against women incidents occurred within their homes. Reports of a police delegate in Rio de Janeiro, also mentioned in this document, indicated that of the more than 2000 cases of defloration and punishment by blows registered at her Police Station, she did not know of any that had ended in the punishment of the aggressor.

Another important finding to support the complaint was the report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its causes and consequences, who visited Brasil, in 1996, to study the specific phenomenum of domestic violence in the country. And the issue of the impunity regarding on domestic violence against women in Brazil was very well recognized in the report of the Special Rapporteur, with a lot recommendations for the State on this subject.

But maybe, the most important source of the investigation on this specific case came from the own victim Maria da Penha, from the criminal process at national level and specially from the book I survived... I can tell (Sobrevivi.... posso contar. Fortaleza, 1994) written by her, and published with the support of the Council of the Rights of Women of Ceará and the Cultural Secretary of the State of Ceará.

In this sense, as the basis for this individual complaint was collected and presented the following researched documents:

• The book published by the victim “Sobrevivi Posso Contar” (I survived, I can tell).

• The report of the Theft and Robbery Delegation, regarding its investigation.

• The medical reports about the treatment that the victim Maria da Penha had to undergo.

• Newspaper clippings about the case and about the domestic violence against women in general in Brazil.

• The complaint against Mr. Heredia Viveiros done by the Public Ministry.

• The Report of the Technical Police Institute dated October 8, 1983 and of the Theft and Robbery Delegation of that same date, both about the crime scene and the finding of the weapon.

• The declarations of the domestic employees dated January 5, 1984.

• The background information request on Marco Antonio Heredia Viveros dated February 9, 1984.

• The health examination report of the victim dated February 10. 1984.

• The decision of “indictment” declaring justified the complaint by the Women Judge of law of the first Jury dated October 31, 1986.

• The sentence by the Jury dated May 4, 1991.

• The Allegation of the General Procurer, requesting the rejection of the appeal recourse dated December 12, 1991.

• The annulment by the State’s Tribunal of Justice on May 4, 1994 of the sentence of the original Jury.

• The decision of the State’s Tribunal of Justice dated April 3, 1995, accepting knowing the recourse against the “indictment decision, but denying its provision, and subjecting the accused to a new trial by Popular Tribunal.

• The decision of the new Popular Tribunal Jury condemning the accused dated March 15, 1996.
  

All these outcomes of the research documented clearly the violation occurred in the concrete case.

The rights violated: Articles 1(1) (Obligation to respect the rights); 8 (Judicial Guarantees); 24 (Equality before the law); and 25 (Judicial Protection) of the American Convention of Human Rights, in relation to Articles II and XVIII of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (“the Declaration”), as well as Articles 3 (the woman’s right to have a life free from violence, in the public and private sphere), 4(a) - right to life, (b) – right to physical, mental and moral integruty, (c) – right to liberty and personal security, (d) – right to be submitted to torture, (e) – right to dignity and protection to the woman’s family, (f) – right to equal protection of law and before law, and (g) – right to a fast and simple resource before the competent court; 5 (protection of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of woman) and 7 (obligations of the State) of the Belém do Para Convention.

The violators: The violators are the State and the non-State actor. But, for this specific strategy, in terms of achieving international responsibility on the case, the violator is the State. The Brazilian State is the violator, for not being able to take at the national level effective measures against the aggressor of the domestic violence (a non-State actor).

The role of the state: In this sense, the omission and negligence of the Brazilian State for the delay of the judicial system in responding to this human rights abuse means a perpetration and toleration of the State and its agents regarding domestic violence against women.

4. Setting Objectives for a strategy

The objective to achieve was to provide a remedy for the specific case of Maria da Penha at international level regarding the impunity at national level of the domestic violence that he suffered, as well as to get the compensation to her related to the human rights violated, establishing the international responsibility of the Brazilian State for not accomplishing with its legal obligation in preventing, punishing and eradicating domestic violence against women.

5. Selecting a strategy

The main strategy was to send an individual complaint to the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights (ICHR) on the specific case of Maria da Penha, therefore, using the international instruments and mechanisms available at the regional system of human rights protection.

CEJIL and CLADEM, prepared the petition and within the victim sent it to the ICHR, in 1998. For that, CEJIL was more involved in the process of carrying out the strategy, taking into account their ongoing technical experience in working with the interamerican system and in special with the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights. In addition, the headquarters of CEJIL is established in Washington, and they were able to follow closely the process before the Commission.

During the process before the Interamerican Commission there was a change in the staff of CEJIL in Brazil, and then the lawyer Liliana Tojo became the responsible for following the case initiated under the leadership of the previous lawyer Maria Beatriz Galli. Both of them played a very important role in conducting this human rights advocacy strategy, with the support of CLADEM.

6. Outcomes of the strategy

On August 20,1998, the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights received the petition on the case of Maria da Penha. On October 19, 1998, the Interamerican Commission transferred the petition to the State and requested information about it.

On the contrary of the petitioners, the Brazilian State has not supplied the Commission any information or response whatsoever regarding the admissibility or the merits of the petition, in spite of the requests done by the Commission to the State.

Regarding the State’s lack of response, on August 2, 1999, the petitioners requested the application of Article 42 of the Commission’s regulations with the purpose of presuming truthful the deeds narrated in the complaint, in view that more than 250 days had elapsed since the transfer of the petition to Brazil and it had not presented its observations about the present case.

On August 4, 1999, the Interamerican Commission reiterated to the State its request that the information that it considered pertinent be sent, warning about the application of Article 42 of its Regulations.

On August 7, 2000, the Interamerican Commission placed itself at the disposition of the parties for thirty days to initiate a process of friendly solution in accordance with Articles 48(1)(f) of the Convention and 45 of the Commission’s Regulations, without having received to date, an affirmative response from any of the parties, thereby the Commission considers that at this stage of the process, the matter is not susceptible of solution by that means.

Based on the examination of the admissibility and of merits of the case, the Commission, in 2001, responded to the demand, concluding and recommending regarding the Brazilian State:

CONCLUSIONS

1. That it has competence to know about this case and that the petition is admissible according to Articles 46(2)(c) and 47 of the American Convention, and in accordance with Article 12 of the Belem do Para Convention, with respect to the violations of the rights and duties established in Articles 1(1) (Obligation to Respect the Rights); 8 (Judicial Guarantees); 24 (Equality before the Law); and 25 (Judicial Protection) of the American Convention, in relation to Articles II and XVIII of the American Declaration (the Declaration); as well as Article 7 of the Belem do Para Convention.

2. That, based on the incontrovertible deeds and the analyses previously exposed, the Federal Republic of Brazil is responsible for the violation of the rights to the judicial guarantees and to the judicial protection, guaranteed by Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention in accordance with the general obligation to respect and guarantee said rights, foreseen in Article 1(1) of said instrument, due to the unjustifiable delay and negligent handling of the present domestic violence in Brazil.

3. That the State has taken some measures destined to reduce the scope of domestic violence and the State tolerance of same, even though those measures have not yet managed to reduce significantly the pattern of State tolerance, particularly on account of the ineffectiveness of the police and judicial action in Brazil, regarding violence against women.

4. That the State has violated the rights and the compliance of its duties according to Article 7 of the Belem do Para Convention in prejudice of Mrs. Fernandes; and in connection with Articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention and in its relation to Article 1(1) of the Convention, due to its own acts of omission and tolerance vis-à-vis the violation inflicted.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Complete fast and effectively the penal processing of the person responsible for the aggression of Mrs. Maria da Penha Fernandes Maia.

2. Likewise, undertake a serious, impartial and exhaustive investigation to determine the responsibility due to irregularities or unjustified delays that impeded the fast and effective process of the person responsible; and to take the corresponding administrative, legislative and judicial measures.

3. Adopt, without prejudice to the eventual actions against the civil responsible for the aggression, the necessary measures so that the State assigns the victim and adequate symbolic and material reparation for the violations established here, particularly its failure in offering a fast and effective recourse; for maintaining the case in impunity for more than fifteen years; and for preventing, with that delay, the timely possibility for repair action and civil indemnity.

4. Continuing and deepening the process of reforms that avoid the state tolerance and the discriminatory treatment regarding domestic violence against women in Brazil. Particularly, the Commission recommends:

• a. Training and sensitization of the specialized judicial and police officers so they can understand the importance of not tolerating domestic violence;

• b. Simplifying the penal judicial procedures with the purpose of reducing the process times, without affecting the rights and guarantees of the due process;

• c. The establishment of alternative forms to the judicial ones, fast and effective for the solution of the intrafamily conflicts;

• d. Multiplying the number of special police delegations for women’s rights and doting them with the special necessary resources for the effective handling and investigation of all the domestic violence complaints, as well as the resources and support of the Public Ministry in the preparation of its judicial reports.

• e. Including in its pedagogic plans curricular units destined to the comprehension of the importance of the respect for women and their rights acknowledged by the Belem do Para Convention, as well as the handling of the intrafamily conflicts;

• f. Informing the Human Rights Interamerican Commission within the term of 60 days counted as of the transmission of the present report to the State, with a report of compliance of these recommendations to the effects foreseen in Article 51(1) of the American Convention.
  

It is important to mention that the Commission had approved the report N° 105/00 about the present case on October 19, 2000, during its 108° Sessions period. Said report was transmitted to the Brazilian State on November 1, 2000, granting it two months to comply with the recommendations formulated; and it informed the petitioners about the approval of a report under Article 50 of the Convention. The term has expired and the Commission has not received response from the State regarding said recommendations, therefore the Human Rights Interamerican Commission considers that said recommendations have not been complied with.

On March 13, 2001, the Commission sent the second Report No. 54/01 to the Brazilian State according to Article 51 of the American Convention, granting thirty days as of the date it was sent so the above-mentioned recommendations were complied with. This term has expired and the Commission has not received any response whatsoever from the State in this respect. Likewise, said report was sent to the petitioners, according to the regulations.

In accordance with Articles 51(3) of the American Convention and 48 of its Regulations, the Commission decided to reiterate the conclusions and recommendations, making public the Report No. 54/01 and including it in its Annual Report to the General Assembly of the OAS. The Commission, in compliance of its mandate, affirmed they would continue evaluating the measures taken by the Brazilian State with relation to the recommendations mentioned, until they have been complied with. In April of 2001, the mentioned report became public.

After the decision:

The decision of the Commission became public with the publication of the Report 54/01 (see the integral text of the report in Case 12.051). The publicity of the case had a very strong repercussion at national and international levels. A lot of media press published articles about the case and the petitioners have spread the decision in different national and international spaces.

It is important to stress also that some actions and strategies at local and national level were carried out, as a Public Audience at the House of Deputies of the State of Ceará with the participation of CEJIL, to charge measures from the local government, as well as mobilisations at local level, with the participation of the Forum of the Women of the Northeast, and with a great involvement of the victim Maria da Penha in fighting for justice.

The petitioners CEJIL and CLADEM also have participated in various meetings with the National Secretary of Women’s Rights (created at the end of 2002), with a great support of AGENDE – Actions in Gender, Citizenship and Development, which added its participation in the efforts of bringing the issue to the attention of the national government, specially through pressions before the National Secretary of Human Rights, the Ministry of Justice and of the International Affairs.

However, during almost one year after the decision of the Commission anything changed in terms of the measures the Brazilian State should take to accomplish with that. Even the criminal process at the national level had not been concluded, and it was “stopped” in somewhere. Then, when CEJIL asked for an audience for following the case before the Commission, “suddenly” the process followed its course. On 8th of March, 2002, it was held the audience for following the in Washington, before the Commission, with the presence of the representatives of the Brazilian government and of the two petitioner organisations. The government presented the measures taken within the judicial instances for accelerating the process. As a result of the audience, the government reaffirmed its commitment to accomplish the recommendations of the Commission, specially for concluding the criminal process at national level, and the petitioners offered themselves to present to the government a proposal to help in implementing the recommendations.

Some months later, the criminal process was finally concluded at national level and the petitioners begun to negotiate with the State Secretary of Human Rights a proposal for the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission. On 15th of October of 2002, another meeting took place before the Commission in Washington, and fifteen days later, the aggressor Marco Antonio Heredia Viveiros was finally arrested.

After the imprisonment of the aggressor, the National Secretary of Woman’s Rights sent also to the petitioners information that they articulated actions within the Public Security of the State of Rio Grande do Norte (the place in which the aggressor was arrested) e of Ceará (place in which the aggressor was sentenced) and still with some persons of the Courts in Ceará, with the Ministry of Justice and son on, in order they could address their attention to the case.

Again, the imprisonment of the aggressor had repercussions in the local and national media press, including the most important national TV channel (TV Globo) included the case in two programs with a great audience (Jornal Nacional and Fantastico), and interviewed Maria da Penha about the prison of her ex-husband.

7. Assessment

From my personal view - as a member of CLADEM in Brazil, and who personally participated of the strategy carried out - as well as from the two involved organizations view, the strategy implemented was a success, for many reasons.

First of all because the strategy achieved its objective related to the issue addressed: the impunity regarding domestic violence against women in Brazil, specially due to the ineffective judicial action at national level in punishing the aggressors and repairing the women’s human rights abused/violated in cases like the Maria da Penha.

The response of the Commission to the demand of the two organizations responsible for the implementation of the strategy was exactly what they wanted to achieve, maybe we could say actually that it was a little bit more than what was expected. And this is because besides of establishing the international responsibility of the Brazilian State for negligence, ommission and tolerance regarding domestic violence against women, providing a remedy for the human rights violated in the specific case of Maria da Penha - included a recommendation for the payment of a financial compensation for the victim by the State – the Commission established also recommendations for the State at the level at public policies to face domestic violence against women in the country.

The Commission concluded that the Brazilian State violated, in prejudice of Mrs. Maria da Penha Maia Fernandes the rights to the judicial guarantees and to the judicial protection as well as article 7 of the Belem do Para Convention and that this violation occurs as part of a discriminatory pattern regarding the tolerance of domestic violence against women in Brazil due to the inefficiency of the judicial action (see specially the paragraphs 55 and 56 of the Commission Report 54/01).

In this sense, the decision of the Commission is relevant not only for Maria da Penha as well as for all Brazilian women. The Maria da Penha case is also extremely relevant for all women of the Latin America and Caribbean countries, since it is the first case in which the Belém do Pará Convention is applied, and specially with a decision in which a country is responsible in matters of domestic violence.

The case became, as was expected, an emblematic case in revealing the systematic pattern of domestic violence against women, denouncing and establishing the State responsibility at international level regarding the impunity of aggressors in this kind of violence, specially due to ineffectiveness of the judicial action and system at national level.

The success of the strategy is reflected also in the fact that the decision of the Commission is creating a kind of “international jurisprudence” related to the issue, and can be used in other similars cases at national and international, consolidating the idea of domestic violence as a women’s human rights violations and that it can not be tolerated by the State. The strategy was a succes in demonstrating also a concrete effectiveness in using the international enforced mechanisms of human rights, as a way of pressurre to guarantee the prevention and reparation of human rights abuses and violations at national level. And the consequences and benefits of using this international mechanism in the case of Maria da Penha is clearly demonstrated, since only under the international pressure the Brazilian State begun to take measures regarding the case.

Besides all that, it is important to stress in this analysis also that there was a political context that contributed also to the success of this strategy, which is related to the fact that in 2002 was the end of the period of the national government, with elections for the new government. And there was a political will and interest of that governmentl in taking all the possible measures regarding human rights. However, is relevant to say that the government has not accomplished with all the recommendations stablished in the decision of the Commission. And the challenge for the petitioners is now to negogiate with the new government on the implementation of all recommendations.

By the way, we could say that the strategy was a success, and the case of Maria da Penha became an emblematic case and a landmark for the role of the international human rights law. Finally, another important indicator of the success of the strategy was the involvement of the victim who became na activist on women’s rights.... and the most important... the satisfaction of the victim with the decision of the Commission and the imprisionment of her aggressor.

Notes:

1/ See SCHULER, Margaret. Women’s Human Rights Step by Stpe Strategy Workbook. Women Law & Development International, pages 21 and 22, USA, 2002.