Xavier Bertrand calls for accommodation places for battered women

Illustration of a welcome for women victims of violence.

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• In a letter sent to the ministry, Xavier Bertrand calls for more accommodation places for women victims of violence, in Hauts-de-France.

• Only ten places have been created in the North, which is nevertheless one of the departments most affected by the phenomenon.

• The Ministry for Gender Equality points out that 61 places were allocated in 2020 across the region.

Announcement effect?

The president (DVD) of the Hauts-de-France region, Xavier Bertrand, has been sending a lot of letters to the various state services for a few months.

One of the most recent concerns accommodation places reserved for women victims of violence. 

On September 2, the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, mentioned the creation of 1,000 additional accommodation places in 2021. And in his letter that

 received, Xavier Bertrand recalls that in September 2019, a year ago, during the Grenelle on domestic violence, the government had already announced "the creation of 1,000 accommodation places". 

However, "only ten places were created in the department of North, which claimed 113, and 20 in Pas-de-Calais", protested Xavier Bertrand.

Too little for a region "particularly concerned by this violence which is, moreover, on the rise", he writes.

In 2018, Hauts-de-France was the second region in the number of violent deaths within the couple.

"We only respond to one in ten accommodation requests"

"We can only respond to one in ten accommodation requests", testifies Delphine Beauvais, director of the "violence against women" pole of Solfa (Solidarité femmes accueil) Nord-Pas-de-Calais, an aid association that now has 124 places with the ten created this year in Douaisis.

“With confinement, daytime care also saw attendance increase by 160%.

With constant funding, ”deplores Delphine Beauvais.

However, the association was able to increase its capacity to handle telephone calls - only one in two in 2018 - thanks to private sponsorship.

"In view of the worrying data on domestic violence in Hauts-de-France, I invite you to pay [to the region] particular attention in the distribution of these new accommodation places", concludes Xavier Bertrand in his letter.

Care centers for perpetrators of violence

Contacted by

, the Ministry for Gender Equality points out that throughout the Hauts-de-France region, "61 places were allocated in 2020 after a call for tenders", without specifying the distribution by department.

It is also not possible to know the national distribution of the 1,000 places, to know which regions have, mathematically, benefited more.

"For the next call for tenders, the first criterion for choosing places will be the territorial network which will take into account the situation of violence in each department," the ministry continues.

In a recent press release, the minister in charge of the file, Elisabeth Moreno, assured that she had "requested the creation of 15 centers for the care of perpetrators of violence by the end of 2020 as well as 15 additional in 2021".

It remains to be seen whether the Nord and Pas-de-Calais will benefit from this.

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