VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: A STRUCTURING APPROACH FOR PUBLIC POLICIES

This paper addresses violence against women as a complex public problem and proposes its structuring to support more effective public policy formulation. To this end, the Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) approach is applied, which prioritizes the identification of decision-makers’ values and objectives as the starting point of the decision-making process. The study is conducted in the context of the state of Pernambuco, considering the high incidence of violence and the need for structured interventions. Based on stakeholder interviews, strategic, fundamental, and means objectives were identified and organized into a hierarchy and a means-ends network. In addition, evaluation criteria were defined and 20 action alternatives were identified. The results demonstrate that a value-based approach enables a more systemic understanding of the problem, contributing to more consistent, transparent, and socially aligned decision-making.