The lecture on "Listening and communicating: managing conflicts", by Carla Maria Zamita Boin, a member of the Restorative Justice Commission of OAB/SP, opened the second panel of the III Judicial Week for Preventing and Combating Harassment and Discrimination in all its forms, on Thursday (May 9th), in the auditorium of the Court of Justice of the State of Tocantins (TJTO).
The lecture, given virtually, dealt with the Restorative Justice, Harassment and Discrimination in the Workplace, and it started from the principle that those who cause harm are not always aware that their actions cause pain to others.
They (people) may not be aware of what they are doing and causing. It's damage, it's deep pain and they need to know that their attitudes cause damage. Or they are sick and need to be referred to some kind of work, support, so that they change the way they act.
The speaker also pointed out that in the conventional justice system, the question is always who is to blame for a particular act and what the classification would be. In the Restorative Justice, the focus is on the damage that was caused, what motivated it and what needs were not met.
"So the focus is on the person who suffered the damage," she said, adding the importance of language: in the Restorative Justice, you shouldn't use offender and victim, as in conventional justice. "When I say offender and victim, I bring a label and freeze those people in those positions. And when we talk about restorative practices, it's often a very fluid work. And these positions can change in this movement, and it's important that they change so that we don't really have this rigidity of judgment."
Carla also emphasized that the Restorative Justice proposes working precisely from the perspective of understanding "that the person doesn't know how to act, needs to learn and is ill, but that they are not someone who should be left out of coexistence, purely and simply being judged, without having the possibility of developing work to bring about this change."
She also said that the workplace is a place where people have an active role to play in managing and resolving conflict, "based on their feelings, their own needs, and to do this, they have to understand that there are infinite possibilities for redress, other than imposing pain".
A problem-solving approach
Dishonor, embarrassment, defamation, humiliation, psychological disturbance. These behaviors were some of the situations attributed to bullying, according to the Judge of the Court of Justice of the State of Mato Grosso (TJMG), Jamilson Haddad Campos, who presented the topic: "Restorative Justice: a resolutive approach to cases of harassment".
To combat harassment and discrimination, the Judge explained the importance of understanding the concept of all types of violence. "These relationships where, in theory, there is a supremacy, someone discriminating against someone else, as if the other had no value. We need to understand these institutes in order to combat them, they affect human beings greatly. We must observe behavior and notice when a person says 'No', even in their body language," explained the magistrate.
The magistrate stressed that the restorative circles are an opportunity for those involved to talk in order to clarify what happened, where the person who suffered the harassment can speak up and tell their colleague about the consequences of their attitude in their life. On the other hand, the moment can lead the other person to reflect on how their attitude could have caused so much discomfort.
Internal processes, with peace-building circles and restorative circles, involve the person in the search for a solution, leading to a higher success rate. It is a real public policy, an internal guideline for all courts, since it allows for a dialog between the parties, which is why I believe it is the best solution to the issue of harassment," he said.
Getting out of the bubble
Closing the programming of the day, Speaker André Barreto Prudente spoke about "The naturalization of diversity as a way to avoid harassment". Delivered virtually, the integrative Psychologist, who holds a master's degree in psychology from the University of the State of São Paulo (USP), revealed that at the root of the harassment process there are traumatized people with blocked feelings who have not healed and reproduce these traumas causing a negative impact on others.
Although each person is unique in their individuality, Psychologist André Prudente stressed that: "The attitude of inclusion, values and promotes unity in diversity and not unity by identification. Faced with a very challenging and traumatic situation, we can have the possibility of healing what we've lived through, integrating the experience and transforming it into something different. You can have a breakdown, a rupture and end up freaking out, or you can, in some way, close down your psychic system and harden it. And when we harden our system and create defenses and protections, we start losing our sensitivity, which is why it's important to heal ourselves."
"Harassment is a type of violence, and the most common types of harassment we know about are bullying, sexual harassment, stalking a person, watching them and going after their life, and bullying, which is a phenomenon that is growing more and more, especially in school environments. And this harassing behavior is the result of a person not being able to recognize that all beings are part of the same reality that is humanity and therefore have equal value and importance, regardless of their differences," he concluded.
