A review of academic literature on women's justice centers as a public policy to combat violence against women

Abstract

The Justice Center for Women (CJM) were created in 2010 as a key public policy to address violence against women. Using a human rights and gender perspective approach, these centers offer comprehensive care through psychological, medical, legal, and economic services, as well as a playroom, temporary shelter, and empowerment programs. Given the relevance of this policy, this article reviews the academic literature on Justice Center for Women. A qualitative methodology is used through the state-of-the-art review technique, which allows for a critical analysis of academic production, identifying the main lines of interest, as well as the theoretical and methodological approaches employed. The search was conducted on electronic platforms such as Dialnet, Redalyc, and Google Scholar, identifying twelve research projects published between 2014 and 2024. The studies were organized by topic around five axes: the design of the centers in terms of their institutions, regulations, and physical space; the dynamics of their internal operations and the role of public servants; the care services they offer; information management mechanisms; and the health conditions of the victims. Although Justice Centers for Women are recognized as an innovative public policy, a review of the literature allows us to understand the relevance and complexity of their design and implementation, just as to account for the limited academic interest in analyzing and questioning their operation more than a decade after the creation of the first center in 2011. The findings allow us to identify not only the most recurrent themes in the reviewed literature, but also to highlight existing gaps and propose new lines of research.