New ways to combat armed violence in Latin America

Armed violence is a real obstacle to development. It costs lives, leaves victims economically incapacitated, drains public resources, prevents people from exercising their citizenship and impedes development. This conclusion by the United Nations resulted in the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, with 110 signatories so far.

This was the theme of an international seminar held this November in Rio de Janeiro bringing together civil society organizations from Brazil and Latin America committed to ending violence. Invited to participate in developing a community of best practices on armed violence and development, specialists tried to synthesize their years of experience by answering a simple question: what works and what doesn’t?

“The Geneva Declaration asks governments to prioritize the need to advance in the fight against violence as the key pieces of international treaties aren’t making any progress, as is the case of the Arms Trade Treaty, ATT,” Robert Muggah said, a researcher for the Swiss organization Small Arms Survey. Muggah opened the seminar quoting statistics of armed violence that flagellate the world and Latin America in particular. “Every year, armed violence outside of wars kills 490.000 people worldwide and costs an estimated US$95-US$163 billion,” Muggah said.

Although there is no cause and effect relation between poverty and violence, the researcher stated that countries with greater economic inequality experience higher rates of violence. More than issuing a statement, the Geneva Declaration has a specific goal. Muggah stated, “Until 2015, the signatories of the declaration aim for a measurable reduction of armed violence and concrete improvements in human security. This also means controlling the supply and demand of arms.” 

According to Ilona Szabo, (left) of Igarapé, a social development organization and one of organizers of the meeting, there are two important issues in Latin America: on the one hand, it suffers from a very high incidence of armed violence, with more homicides by firearms than war zones. On the other, it is also a hotbed for initiatives on violence prevention. “Civil society has taken upon itself the task of promoting peace by preventing violence and social exclusion, two factors that hinder development,” Szabo said.

Evidence based practices aren’t new

According to Szabo, the Geneva Declaration has found fertile ground in Latin America and the Caribbean, where a consensus on how to intervene on violence reduction already exists. “We already know that we have to work together through partnerships and take a multidisciplinary approach,” she said. Peace, however, isn’t only a matter of government.

The guests at the discussion table were very much proof of this with representatives from government, police, civil society organizations and universities. “We used to see each other as opponents in the past, but now we have evolved. The biggest challenge we need to overcome at this point is how to obtain a greater commitment from the private sector, which has been very vocal about the need for change,  but isn't really involved,” said Szabo.

She also noted that the region has already accumulated years of experience in interventions, and the current idea that practices should be evidence-based isn’t exactly new. “We need to refine the models and improve the scale of projects, creating more effective partnerships. We need to develop prevention indicators and develop aggregated indicators that aren’t simply a rendition of numerical data," she said.

Violence in the plural

To reduce violence it is crucial to understand that it involves a plural noun. Laura Carrera, (right) of the National Crime Prevention Center in Mexico, showed how her country is a clear example that defies simplification. The country is in the midst of a public security crisis, but the homicide rate is 12 per 100.000 people, which is lower than Brazil or Colombia. According to the researcher, violence is concentrated in different regions and classes of society.

“We can't simply discuss ‘violence’ in the singular, but must discuss ‘violences’. The history of the city, immigration policies, social infrastructure and immigrant identity all play a role,” said Carrera. The researcher pointed out that there are places where job creation programs have not worked, and other places where funding for public security policies focus on organized crime, although it is domestic violence that causes the greatest loss.

Carrera pointed out social isolation as a factor that contributes to violence and is an obstacle to development. Regional inequality often leads to isolation and creates vulnerable areas. This creates citizens who don’t know their own cities, have no access to services and are prisoners of conflicts that limit their economic and political potential.

18 weapons handed in save a life

The actual role that arms play still surprises people. Newspaper headlines report situations that aren’t always corroborated by statistics. Alice Ribeiro, arms control coordinator of Sou da Paz Institute in São Paulo, explains that people often assume that most murders occur in remote battles between police and drug gangs. However, most people kill and die within a two kilometer radius from home. “For every 18 firearms that are turned in, one life is spared,” Ribeiro said.

In Brazil, VIVA Rio researchers have proven that it’s wrong to assume that most deadly weapons are foreign made. In Costa Rica, people often assume that weapons have been inherited from earlier conflicts, glossing over the significant import of illegal foreign heavy weapons, according to Ana Yancy Espinoza, of the Árias Foundation.

Júlio Purcena, a Viva Rio researcher, underlined the importance of research about firearms, followed by voluntary disarmament initiatives. “If we don’t close the tap, guns will continue to circulate”, stated Purcena.

Police need to be trained on adolescents

One of the central discussion themes was the relationship between police and youth. Daniel Llaury Linares, (left) of Peru's National Police, defends an unusual idea for the police, and not only for one department, but for the entire police force.

“The lack of theoretical and practical tools for dealing with adolescents is an enormous shortcoming. We need to know how teens think and behave, and develop effective strategies to approach them,” Linares explained. “A lot of men choose this profession because they suffered directly or indirectly from violence, including police violence,” Linares noted. “A step in this direction will also translate into concrete savings. A juvenile delinquent in jail costs US$400. In an open regime, the cost drops to US$100 and everybody wins; the community, the family, the youth and the institutions,” he said.

Felipe Andrés Fernandes Soto, of Estación Esperanza, in Chile, described how the police could do a lot more than simply handcuff kids. In his project, a municipal initiative, police don’t send youth who come into conflict with the law to the police station, but instead refers them to a civil society organization that tries to rescue the youth by helping them to restore their social bonds.

“The first thing we do is return the youth home and see if they are at risk of being expelled from school. We offer support to keep them in school, prevent domestic violence and drug use, and refer them to other services. We act as a safety net,” Soto described. He believes that safety doesn’t mean creating an isolation barrier to protect society from at risk youth, but, on the contrary, give youth the support they need to prevent them from falling into marginality.

Initiatives such as those by Instituto Reação and Luta pela Paz (the Fight for Peace), both from Brazil, offer sports activities combined with educating youth in at risk areas about citizenship and have proven quite effective in preventing violence.

Prevention is key

Experts agree that prevention is the key to combat armed violence and its harmful impact on social development. According to Szabo, prevention means strengthening state structures. She cited as an example the Brazilian program Escolas do Amanhã (Schools of Tomorrow), which offers quality education in high risk areas and provides assistance to families and young children.

Ana Yancy Espinoza, (right) of the Arias Foundation, believes that prevention needs to go beyond offering services. “We have to be careful with the terms and concepts that we use. For example, we cannot call a project a gang prevention program because the name reinforces exactly that which we are trying to prevent.” Yancy also says that prevention means reformulating relationships to create new avenues that steer clear from bad solutions promoted by violence.

Ivan Darío Ramirez, of the Colombian organization Paz y Democracia, expressed his concern over a new element: the issue of learning a culture of violence. His project is based in Medellín, a city that experienced a significant drop in homicide rates and is now threatened by a possible increase in armed violence. Ramirez observed that there is a new generation that grew up in a culture of violence. “They have no other point of reference and today we see gangs are fighting turf wars even in school grounds, something that was unthinkable even during the high murder rates in the 1990s.”

Ramirez notes that the simple investment of resources in at risk communities doesn’t work. “What does work is long-term partnerships; without these it's impossible to promote any change in society,” he said.

The seminar ended with the Comunidad Segura workshop offered by Mayra Jucá, Viva Rio Communications coordinator.

The workshop discussed communication strategies for civil society organizations that work in the field as well as its use as a tool to generate social awareness of the importance of this work. Participants discussed the subject matter of the next virtual Comunidad Segura magazine that will showcase the work of 22 participants in the seminar involved in armed violence reduction projects in the continent.

Translated by Alexandra de Vries