“I want to create a specialized court on the model of what was done in Spain (…) so that serious danger telephones are finally distributed. Today, there are only 2% of female victims who are provided”explained the LR presidential candidate, Valérie Pécresse, in a video shared on Twitter on March 8, on the occasion of Women’s Rights Day.
Electing a woman President of the Republic must change everything in the lives of women! #8 March #Women’sRightsDay pic.twitter.com/QGwvCr9UHE
— Valerie Pécresse (@vpecresse) March 8, 2022
Where does this number come from?
This figure, Valérie Pécresse takes it from a report by the Ofxam association made public in early March. We read there that “the current number of TGD represents only 1 to 2% of cases of domestic violence”. According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Justice, nearly 3,500 telephones are available to the courts to date (of which just under 2,500 have already been allocated). Victimization surveys show that there are nearly 220,000 women who claim to be victims of domestic violence. A quick calculation shows that we are therefore well around 2% of victims equipped with a telephone.
However, this calculation has its limits. The “Telephone grave danger” device is not intended for all victims of domestic violence.
What award criteria?
It is the public prosecutor who decides whether or not to attribute a serious danger telephone. It is therefore up to him to assess the situation of the victims. To do this, he notably has the possibility of asking the associations that support these victims to submit an assessment report.
However, the law provides for three main award criteria to be met. The victim must no longer cohabit with the perpetrator of the violence, which is far from being the case for the 220,000 women who are victims of domestic violence. The aggressor must also have a judicial ban on coming into contact with this woman (condition lifted if this procedure did not succeed but there is a serious imminent danger or the assailant is on the run). In addition, the victim must himself agree to hold this telephone.
Are all “eligible” victims really equipped?
It’s harder to say. The Oxfam association, in its report, considers that the justice system does not use this tool enough and the victims’ associations would also like more telephones. Emmanuel Macron had promised to accelerate the generalization of this device. The number of phones has grown significantly during his tenure, from 543 phones deployed in 2017 to 3,461 today. The law was also amended in 2019 to make the award conditions more flexible.
Not all jurisdictions are equipped in the same way, but a question arises: does a court that only has two telephones at its disposal risk assigning them too sparingly? The Ministry of Justice assures that if a jurisdiction is about to have no more phones available, it now quickly receives a delivery of new phones so that it is never out of stock. Contacted, the magistrates’ union was not able to confirm this precise information, but recognizes that in recent years progress has been made on this device.