Building up a National Public Policy on Mental-Health Reparations for Victims of State Violence in Brazil

_{According to data from the Brazilian Public Safety Forum, in 2023 the police were responsible for the deaths of 6,393 people across the country. Of these, 71.7 per cent were children, adolescents or young people up to the age of 29, 82 per cent of whom were black. Black movements call it a genocide, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights sentenced the Brazilian State in 2017 to build a psychological reparation program for the victims, among other mandatory measures.}

_{That´s the context where a network called RAAVE was built in Rio de Janeiro in 2022. This is an initiative led by the Public Defender's Office, in partnership with universities (UFF ; UFRJ; UERJ; PUC), the Ministry of Justice, social movements and NGOs. Its aim is to provide psychosocial and legal support to individuals, especially mothers, affected by state violence, expanding access to justice and public health policies. Moreover, the program proposes inputs and crucial guidelines for a National Public Policy on Mental-Health Reparation based on an intersectoral and victim-centered approach, grounded in international legal principles.}

_{With the protagonism of social movements such as the “Mothers Victims of Lethal State Violence”, the work started with 100 mothers, as co-researchers at Federal Universities, with scholarship support. The mothers have access to public lawyers and to one of our 12 clinics in Rio de Janeiro, and they are also active agents in the territories affected, showing solidarity to new mothers who have just been victims as well. Students help some mothers on the ground and do the clinic work under supervision.}

_{We aim here to present the innovative work that RAAVE is conducting on the field, with the hope to provide some inspiration for other initiatives in contexts that suffer of extreme police lethal violence}