Brazil Unveils ‘Panic Button’ Device For Women In Fight Against Domestic Abuse

Brazil, one of the worst countries in the hemisphere in measures of abuse of women, is trying out an innovative way to fight back against the problem. In the southeastern city of Vitória, in Espírito Santo state, police are giving out so-called "panic buttons" to women who have filed restraining orders against former partners who abused them. According to CNN, women who obtain it can carry it on an elastic belt under their clothes -- the device is no bigger than a cell phone -- and when a small button on it is pressed and held for three seconds, it sends a GPS signal and triggers an alarm at the police station. Nearly 40 women in Vitória have received them so far.

The alert is sent to the smartphones of four response teams, who can see the victim's location on a map as well as a picture of the victim and her abuser. The device also begins to record and transmit audio, which can be used in court. One recipient of the device, Jaina Maria, told CNN that after suffering four years of beatings from her husband, divorcing him and getting a restraining order against him, he would still show up on occasion at her house to threaten her. After police gave her the "panic button", she used it to great effect -- police, she says, showed up at her house in four minutes, and her husband was sentenced to 21 days in jail for violating the restraining order.

Domestic violence is a considerable problem in Brazil, which ranks seventh out of 84 countries in the number of murdered women. Vitória is particularly bad in that respect -- according to the Brazilian Center for Latin American Studies, in 2010 13.2 for every 100,000 women in the Brazilian city were murdered. That number is triple the national average of 4.4. By comparison, the United States sees 2.1 murders of women out of every 100,000 as of 2007. "The worst aggression happens behind closed doors," Vitória Municipal Secretary of Urban Security Welington da Costa Ribeiro told USA Today. "Before, we weren't able to help victims once the doors to their homes were closed, when their aggressors were their partners, ex-partners or other family members," he said. "Now we've changed that."

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