“We are not going far enough and fast enough” against domestic violence, deplores the Osez le feminisme collective

A woman and her four children were found dead on Monday in their apartment in Meaux. The main suspect, the victim’s husband and father of the children, was arrested and taken into custody.

“What is in place is not enough. We are not going far enough, not fast enough. In the meantime, women and children continue to die”, reacts Violaine De Filippis-Abate, lawyer and spokesperson for Dare to Feminism! on franceinfo Tuesday December 26, after the quintuple homicide in Meaux (Seine-et-Marne) of a mother and her four children, aged 9 months to 10 years old.

The victim’s husband, father of the children, is considered the main suspect. Hospitalized, he was taken into police custody Tuesday morning. This is the 102nd feminicide of the year, according to the count of the Feminicide Collective by companions or ex. Violaine De Filippis-Abate calls for “real political and therefore budgetary will”including the creation of “specialized jurisdictions for domestic violence” like in Spain.

franceifno: More than 100 feminicides this year in France. With everything that has been put in place in recent years, how do we get to this point?

Violaine De Filippis-Abate: This shows that what is put in place is not enough. We are not going far enough, not fast enough. In the meantime, women and children continue to die. I often take the example of Spain, which set up specialized jurisdictions for domestic violence in 2004. Since then, the number of feminicides has fallen by 24%, that’s a quarter of lives saved. The official report of the General Inspectorate of Justice in 2019 specified that women killed at the hands of their spouse, even though they had reported the violence to the police, had seen their complaints dismissed mainly for lack of investigation. … That is to say, we could have saved these women.

In this case in Meaux, the father had already stabbed his wife in 2019. She had not filed a complaint. The abolition of discernment had been upheld by the courts. He was being monitored for depressive and psychiatric disorders. Could this tragedy have been avoided?

I think so. We are waiting for many elements of the file, of course. But I ask myself the question: why did this woman not have the benefit of a serious danger telephone which would have allowed her to contact the police? There are not enough serious danger telephones in the territory.

Nearly 3,000 serious danger telephones were developed in September 2021. There were also anti-reconciliation bracelets, and the creation of a file of perpetrators of domestic violence. Are these measures, however, bearing fruit?

It’s better than nothing, of course. But we see how much remains to be done. Much more is needed. We need to train our police forces a lot more. We need specialized courts for violence against women. I would even say that for investigations, we must force prosecutors not to close files without a minimum of investigative action. We could establish a list, within the framework of a parliamentary debate. Today it’s terrible, the situation is truly alarming. We need new measures, real political and therefore budgetary will.