When victims of sexual violence provide testimony, the British police usually do the basic questions: who ?, when ?, where ?, how ?. But there is a question they never do: why ?.
The idea is that when questioning the victim's motivations - the decision to go to someone's house, or drink a drink the most - it is suggested that it would have responsibility for the violence suffered.
"We do not look for the victim to think about why this happened to her to judge her, but think:. That happened and the person who did it is that created the problem, not the victim does not matter how you dress, if drank or used drugs or their lifestyle, "said Bernie Ryan, reference center coordinator of St Mary's, which is training police and other professionals.
St. Mary's, Manchester, was the first of 46 reference centers for sexual violence in the UK, where a person is a victim of rape or sexual violence every 6 minutes - not counting with the cases that are not reported.
Last year, there were 103,000 cases in the country - about 35,000 rapes and 68,000 other types of sexual violence. In Brazil, there is a case of rape every 11 minutes, but you can not make a direct comparison because the laws on rape in countries are different.
The British reference centers are a kind of mix between hospital, police station and IML: there victims receive medical care, take exams to collect forensic evidence and provide testimony. They also receive psychological counseling from the moment they arrive until the end of the investigations.
Each center is in a hospital complex but has a separate entrance, no name on the door, not to expose the victim.
Upon arrival, the patient is received by a specialized professional in dealing with victims of aggression, which explains all the procedures that will occur. The team is made up only of women.
The advantage of having a unified center is that it avoids the station environment, which can intimidate the victim, and she did not need to repeat the painful story several times (for police, doctors, psychologists etc).
In addition, police officers and other professionals are trained by the center so know how to deal with this specific type of violence.
The victims, however, have no obligation to file a complaint - if they do not receive care in the same way. The evidence collected will be available for seven years in case she changes her mind and decide to take the case to the police.
River
But one of the reasons why the centers were created is to try to encourage victims to report cases of sexual violence in the UK.
According to the NGO Rape Crisis, only 15% of rape cases are reported. One reason would be the history of the police and the hostile treatment of justice to victims of rape - which, according to activists, is still common in many cases.
This reason was also mentioned in the recent discussion about the treatment by the police in Brazil after the termination of the gang rape of a teenager 16 years in Rio de Janeiro. The case came to light because of a video posted on social networks by one of the accused.
I would have passed by embarrassment at the police station: according to the victim, the officer investigating the case - far away - doubted their information and gathered his testimony in a glass room, where everyone, including those suspected of the crime, could see -over there.
It also would have shown the video that shows the sexual violence she suffered and taken to his girlfriend to accompany the statement.
According to experts, this kind of attitude discourages victims to denounce their abusers.
Jury
The only center model in the UK has been taken to other countries. St Mary's, for example, cooperates with authorities in Egypt, India, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
According to Ryan, have a single center makes more people to report crimes of sexual violence. But this does not necessarily result in more convictions.
Ryan believes that this may be linked to the fact that the guilty or not guilty verdict be handed down by a jury (in Brazil, the verdict is up to the judge).
"We can train professionals, but the jury is composed of members of society and can take your decision based on the evidence or be influenced by their stereotypes about rape," says Ryan. Therefore, she said, it is important to society awareness campaign on sexual violence.
'I do not remember'
A good example for the functionality of these centers is the case of Juliet, raped on New Year's 2012 and served at St Mary's.
She had been drinking and was alone in a bar - the person who would find it in place could not go.
He decided to go home because he realized he was drunk, but after that his memory fails: it says remember being in an alley with a man forcing her to oral sex to him.
But do you remember the time when there was vaginal penetration - which discovered through tests at St Mary's.
"I'm trying to understand something that I do not remember. It's not there (in memory), it's horrible. I just have forensic evidence they said someone had sex with me without my knowing it. And that's rape. I said she had been raped, told me through exams, "she told the documentary Rape: the Unspeakable Crime, screened by the BBC in 2013.
"I hope the jury understand that I did not do anything, I was not my fault," she said before the trial. The criminal was eventually convicted unanimously.
Fault
Police said about 60% of cases brought to trial in the UK end in conviction.
As in Brazil, the majority of rapes in the UK are committed by people the victim knows. But, according to Ryan, there are also cases of people attacked by strangers - as Juliet - and collective rapes.
"One of the most important things the center does not believe the victim, we are not here to tell whether (the crime) happened or not, to prove the crime. It is to help the investigation in terms of forensic evidence but also give immediate care to victim, "he explains.
"The victims talk all the time did not think it would happen to them and that if they did, they must have done something because it does not happen with 'people of good'. We must end these myths. Victims of sexual violence already blame themselves too - and we're here to break this barrier. "
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