Financial assistance released in two working days for victims of domestic violence, this is the promise of the bill brought by the centrist senator from the North Valérie Létard. The goal: help victims to leave the marital home more quickly, even when they have no income or access to the joint family account.
Arthur, 54, is one of the victims who failed to leave quickly. For sixteen years, he experienced violence from his wife, whom he now calls “his executioner”. “I was hit, handcuffed, raped, beaten… it was first slaps, then beatings everywhere, belt blows, whippings… I was a nobody, she treated me worse than an animal.“
She made me leave my job to stay at home in her service. Little by little, she forbade me to see my family, my friends… I no longer went out, I was isolated, cloistered. I had become his object.
“Without money, we do not leave”
From the first year of marriage, he filed a complaint for “battery and injury”. But at the time, leaving the marital home was not possible for him: “As I had resigned from my job for her, I had no more salary, not even unemployment. And without money, we do not leave. Where would I have been? Under a bridge. It’s all well and good, we are told: leave! But the victims, where do they go? I had to manage to live and she played on it saying ‘you see, you sleep on the floor but without me you would sleep outside‘”.
It is precisely to respond to these situations that the senator wants to propose a “universal emergency aid” distributed to victims by the Family Allowance Fund after filing a complaint or requesting a protection order. With an amount equivalent to the RSA, this zero-rate loan could be paid for three months. Its reimbursement would be spread over time depending on the situation.
“With some help, I think I’ll be gone a lot quickersays Arthur. If I had been told ‘we give you money, it helps you find accommodation’, yes, that would have helped me. I think a lot of things in my life would have changed.”
An incomplete solution for associations
“The idea is good, it’s a plus that comes on top of everything that exists, but it’s not enough. Already, because the main obstacle that prevents victims from leaving is not the question of income but the question of influencenuance Djamila Merzagui, director of the association The Family Corner in Arras. And then, because the real fight against domestic violence is to act towards the perpetrators. As long as we do not attack the origin of the problem, we will give financial aid, there will always be women victims of conjugal violence and there will always be feminicides.”
Co-signed by around thirty centrist senators, the bill will be sent to the other political groups and should be proposed on October 20th. The device provided for by the text will be tested from October 1 in Valenciennes.