ERMeCC Lunch Seminar

Instant Message Apps in the Guarantee of Women's Rights on Domestic Violence

Rafael Delfino Rodrigues Alves

This work exposes how the emergence of a public policy to tackle domestic violence in Goiás, through the “Patrulha Maria da Penha” of the Polícia Militar de Goiás. It also shows how these military police unit uses Information and Communication Technology (ICT), WhatsApp, as a tool for the implementation and execution of public policy, in the creation of a public communication channel between patrol officers, women assisted in emergency protection measures and the general population. The article also presents the dimensions of fundamental human rights to list how the use of technology/communication/information is directly related to other fundamental rights in the case studied. In this way, categories were created in a Case Study that performed document analysis, made an exposition of exploratory interviews and observed in a participatory way the police service through the WhatsApp Hotline of “Patrulha Maria da Penha” in the city of Goiânia-GO in December 2020. As a conclusive proposal, it was realized that public communication optimizes the work of the patrol, while information is used as a way of guaranteeing other fundamental rights such as life, freedom, security, the culture of denunciation, access to public justice and free, as examples. It was also noted that the technological tool implemented in policing brought some assistants closer to the patrol and created a more informal and open environment for making complaints and settling doubts / generating information in the fight against domestic violence. However, the lack of standardization and the non-evaluative measurement of the use of the application compromises new public policy guidelines in force.