Goals of the exercise: reflection on the participants regarding the bio-psychological impact of domestic violence on the victims.
Age of the participants: 13 to 17
Number of participants: 15 to 25
Duration of the exercise: 20 minutes (may vary depending on the debate produced)
Materials: Letter of Rights, adapted from “Violência Doméstica: Intervenção em grupo com mulheres vítimas – Manual para Profissionais” (Matos & Machado, 2011)

Step by step

1. At the very beginning give to all of the participants a copy of the Letter of Rights.
2. It is requested that the various rights be read aloud by the participants and in the end, we ask for opinions about the rights.
3. Then, everyone is asked to crumple the Letter as much as possible.
4. When everyone has their papers well wrinkled, they are asked to roll them out and try to put them in the initial format.
5. Encourage a debate with questions about the bio-psycho-physiological impact of violence of the victims.

Letter of Rights

If you are in an abusive relationship, you need to know you have rights:

• I have the right to be myself.
• I have the right to put myself first.
• I have the right to be safe.
• I have the right to be treated with respect.
• I have the right to love and be loved.
• I have the right not to be perfect in all I do.
• I have the right to feel revolted and to protest when I am treated unfairly or abusively by anyone.
• I have the right to my privacy.
• I have the right to have opinions, to express them and to be taken seriously.
• I have the right to earn and control my money.
• I have the right to ask questions about everything that affects my life.
• I have the right to make decisions that affect my life.
• I have the right to grow, to develop myself and change.
• I have the right to say no!
• I have the right to make mistakes.
• I have the right not to take responsibility for the problems of others.
• I have the right to CONTROL MY LIFE AND TO CHANGE IT IF I’M NOT SATISFIED WITH IT!

Adapted from “Violência Doméstica: Intervenção em grupo com mulheres vítimas – Manual para Profissionais” (Matos & Machado, 2011)

Debriefing

Questions that can be addressed at first (after reading Letter of Rights)

• Do all people have access to these rights?
• If not, what are the rights that they can not access so easily?
• What can cause the absence of the exercise of these rights? Examples?

Questions that can be put in the second moment

• Did you get the sheet back to the initial shape? Why?
• How can the crumpled paper be related to domestic violence?
• Do victims of domestic violence manage to completely overcome the ill-treatment they have suffered?
• What kinds of consequences do domestic violence pose to the victim?
• And for the children, are there any consequences? Which?

Authorship / Adaptation or source: unknown source, adapted by CooLabora
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