The statistics for the start of 2023 are similar to those of 2019, the year during which 146 women were victims of their spouse or ex-spouse.
By Valentine Arama
© Ludovic Maillard / MAXPPP / PHOTOPQR/VOIX DU NORTH/MAXPPP
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EThey were called Nadège, Nelly, Eva, Valérie, Catherine… As of March 9, 2023, the “Féminicides” collective recorded 31 murders of women by spouse since the start of the year. A number which would even amount to 32 in reality since Friday March 10, a 28-year-old young woman was stabbed by her partner in Dinan, in the Côtes-d’Armor. The victim’s child is said to have witnessed the scene. In the process, the author of the facts was arrested, indicted and imprisoned.
In 2022, 104 women had been killed by their spouse or ex-spouse. Just three months into the year, statistics for 2023 point to a dark year, as was the case in 2019, when the death toll rose to 146, according to the National Violent Death Study. within the couple, made public by the Ministry of the Interior. An evil that the authorities do not seem to be able to stem, even though the fight against violence against women has been erected as a “great cause of the five-year term” by Emmanuel Macron. At the end of 2022, during a trip to Dijon on this theme, the President of the Republic recognized an “obligation to do better”.
READ ALSOFemicide in the North: the trial of a drama announcedThe state is also regularly singled out for its inaction in the face of violence against women. On Friday March 10, the lawyer for the parents of Chahinez Daoud, murdered by her husband in Mérignac in 2021, announced that he was going to launch gross negligence proceedings against the State. With France Bleu Gironde, the lawyer denounced a series of “malfunctions in the public service of justice” between the conviction of the suspect for domestic violence on June 25, 2020 and the assassination of Chahinez Daoud ten months later. On May 4, 2021, the 31-year-old young woman was burned alive in the middle of the street by her husband when she had filed a complaint for violence a month and a half earlier.
Aggravating circumstance
A few days before the lawyer’s announcement, on Monday March 6, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne announced the establishment of “specialized poles” in domestic violence within the courts in order to respond to the problems experienced by women victims. It will not be a question of specialized jurisdictions, specified the Prime Minister, who indicated having received the first conclusions of a parliamentary mission, which must make its final work at the end of March.
Some 200 poles must be created in total within the 164 judicial courts and 36 courts of appeal, also indicated Matignon. They will deal with domestic violence cases both at the civil and criminal levels, with a single file and dedicated hearings. “The objective is to have a complete response for women victims of violence,” added Elisabeth Borne. The Prime Minister also mentioned the idea that magistrates could be recruited and additional resources devoted to these poles, without however specifying the amount dedicated to this measure.
READ ALSOHow to judge “the hold”, a subtle and devastating phenomenonIf the term feminicide entered the Larousse in 2021 and designates the “murder of a woman or a young girl because of her belonging to the female sex”, it is however not recognized as such in the French Penal Code. Nevertheless, the murder of a spouse, partner or partner linked to the victim by a civil pact of solidarity is an aggravating circumstance of homicide, under the terms of article 221-4 9 of the Penal Code, thus incurring criminal imprisonment. perpetuity to its author.