Juizados de Violência Doméstica e Familiar — Brazil's Special Domestic-Violence Courts under the Maria da Penha Law

Brazil's Law 11.340/2006, known as the Maria da Penha Law after the survivor whose case reached the Inter-American human rights system, created specialised Juizados de Violência Doméstica e Familiar contra a Mulher (Special Domestic and Family Violence Courts) and directed districts without one to give these cases priority in ordinary criminal courts.

Three independent impact evaluations have examined its effect on domestic homicide of women: Schiavon (2017) found the law prevented a 19% increase in the female domestic-homicide rate, with the effect concentrated in municipalities under 100,000 residents; Ferraz & Schiavon (2022) estimated a 9% reduction, with larger effects among women of colour and those with less education; and Azuaga & Sampaio (2017) estimated reductions in the 10–27% range. Separately, a study of 4,358 domestic-violence cases in São Paulo courts (2010–2019) found a 42% conviction rate when a case was assigned to a female judge versus 32% under a male judge with comparable career characteristics — a 31% relative increase — within an overall outcome mix of 32.5% conviction and 51.4% acquittal. The courts remain active at scale: Brazil's National Council of Justice recorded 621,202 protective orders issued in 2025 alone.

A caveat: the São Paulo sample's 51.4% acquittal rate, and the sizeable gap in outcomes between judges, show that implementation is uneven even under a law widely cited internationally (including by the United Nations) as a comprehensive model.

Read the full analysis: https://arxiv.org/html/2405.07240v2