Police in Australia deal with a domestic violence matter every two minutes, according to estimates, a disturbing reality authorities around the country are struggling to combat.

Queensland researchers are now looking across the world to South America, where a unique and cooperative approach has been achieving success under the radar.

Women-only police stations designed specifically to deal with domestic and sexual violence have been quietly running for decades across Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Peru with multi-agency and government cooperation.

Queensland University of Technology criminologist professor Kerry Carrington has been granted permission to begin a world-first study after a recent visit to the unique stations in Argentina.

Professor Carrington said that, as the name suggests, the stations are staffed by female police officers, psychologists and social workers.

"They don't look like police stations in that they are very brightly coloured, they have flowers [and] they are very inviting and welcoming," she said.

"The interview rooms are very bright; every single one of them has a play centre [and] a toy room for children.

"They also coordinate between all the other parts of government to supply the support women need on the ground, so the women don't have to go anywhere else."

Professor Carrington is now working with Argentinean authorities and colleagues in South America to coordinate the first evaluative study to rigorously examine the efficacy of the stations.

She said ultimately the goal was to see whether Australia could benefit from the Latin American model.

"I certainly think that we haven't come terribly far if you take the murder rates and we haven't been able to get those rates down, so that's a pretty strong indicator that what we are doing isn't working," she said.

"There's a lot that we can learn from these models — a lot about how they work in collaboration between different levels of government.

"I now actually think [that] absolutely we would be crazy not to do it."

'They don't report through the police hierarchy'

Brazil was the first country to establish women-only police stations in 1985.

There are now hundreds of these stations around Latin America, with dozens more planned in the next two years.

One of the keys to their success is that the stations operate outside normal police structure, according to Professor Carrington.

"They have a different reporting line and they don't report through the police hierarchy," she said.

"The most significant thing about the women-only police is that the commissioner reports directly to the minister.

"That is obviously an indication of how valuable they are considered."

While the stations have been expanding, there has been surprisingly little research into the effectiveness of the centres, due to a lack of funding and a focus on service deliver.

One of the few papers on the centres by United Nations Women in 2011 found the centres were effective in promoting access to justice for women and increasing reporting of domestic violence.

But Professor Carrington said there were also two unexpected effects.

"One was that they increased the number of women entering the police service because it created better police structures for women," she said.

"The other unintended benefit is that it embodied a preventative value — it's had a really strong effect in turning around cultural opinion.

"They also enhance conviction rates, so there's so many reasons why they are a much better way of responding."