REPORTAGE
After these 55 days of confinement, due to coronavirus, it is also time to take stock for victims of intra-family violence. The government's platform for reporting domestic violence has recorded five times more reports, with a 36% increase in police interventions. Emergency shelters were opened during the period to shelter women victims of violence, who were locked up with their attacker. But at the time of deconfinement, victims and associations are worried about the sustainability of places.
>> READ ALSO - How associations are mobilizing in the face of the outbreak of domestic violence
"I was very afraid"
In Rhône-Alpes, the association VIFFIL (Violences Intra-Familiales Femmes Informations Liberté) SOS Femmes managed 33 emergencies in a month and a half between March 16 and April 26: that's twice the average from last year. To cope with this influx of emergency situations very often aggravated by confinement, the State has opened the Sentinel metropolis of Lyon, a 60-place center specially dedicated to welcoming women and their children who have fled a spouse violent.
>> Find all of Raphaëlle Duchemin's programs in replay and podcast here
Mila has been staying at the Sentinel for a month, a relief after a month locked in a studio with her husband. "He hurt me a lot, she says, the more the confinement went on the more he was irritated, he shouted, insulted me. I was very afraid, I felt that he was going to make me very wrong". Here, Mila has her dedicated room in a center whose address remains anonymous. Protected by a secure gate and the night watchman's rounds.
>> READ ALSO - Containment: "We have a lot of spikes in domestic violence", reports the co-president of the FCPE
Since her arrival she feels relieved, she has less and less night terrors, thanks in particular to the follow-up of a psychologist. But she knows that the respite will be short-lived, "on May 31 the center must close and I must find a solution, I have no resources, no job, I would like to settle in stable accommodation with work sheltered from the danger of my husband. "
"Out of the question" that women find themselves without solutions
Malika Benzineb, head of this ephemeral center for the Mas association, continues to welcome women and fights to perpetuate the structure. "It is out of the question that women will find themselves without solutions when we have to close this center, because that would send them back to their executioners. For the moment I am not in a position to tell them where they will go exactly." The metropolitan area of Lyon is committed to creating 1,500 accommodations for the homeless, with places dedicated to women victims of domestic violence.
>> READ ALSO - OM welcomes women victims of violence: "It's a nice bottle of oxygen"
Women's protection associations hope for a strong commitment from the government. Beyond the situation of women already taken care of during confinement, the concern of Françoise Brié Director General of the National Solidarity Federation for Women (FNSF) is not being able to quantify the number of women who have not been able to demonstrate during confinement "because of the surveillance of their aggressor and the increase in violence. We could face an evolution of requests for shelter in the days and weeks following the deconfinement."