Laura Rapp, 32, could have died under the beatings of her husband, like 146 women in 2019. But she survived. She tells of the violence in her marriage, then in the face of the institutions supposed to protect them, her and her daughter. So many injustices turned into battles.
We know the frequent outcome of domestic violence: death. 35%, or more than a third of women victims of femicide in 2020, had already suffered previous violence, according to government figures published in August 2021. When we escape, how to overcome the gaping trauma? Laura Rapp, former employee in the real estate sector and mother of little Alice, has chosen the fight as a lifeline.
A fight to escape the clutches of her husband, first of all, because despite five years of violence and an attempted murder, the latter was able to spend two months in nature and find her. To obtain the status of victim, then, and prevent this father capable of the worst from having access to their child, now 5 years old. And now, to transform these institutions in the image of our patriarchal society: a police force that does not know the words to help lodge a complaint, a justice that requires women to embody the “exemplary victim” if they want to be floods and support for traumatized children at the sole expense of the parent, who himself tries not to sink.
From spouse to judge, a course of violence
Laura’s weapon to denounce the plight of women: the word, which comes out all at once as if to keep the facts at bay. The meeting with his ex-spouse, the immediate love, but also, insidious, the feeling of inferiority that he sets up. First of all, materially: he is ten years older than her, becomes “his mentor” at work, offers him to move into his new apartment … Psychologically, too. In the video above Laura talks about bullying, insults. She would be “ugly”, responsible for outbursts of anger, then slapping – when not “the fault of alcohol or work”. Once in her territory, the famous apartment, she can’t do much. The child she bears will seal the unilateral pact: he has all the rights, she belongs to him. The only tears we will see in Laura’s eyes are for that night when her ex-partner tries to kill her, to strangle her until she ends. “totally disjointed” and ready to “choke on his vomit”. If the young woman can today tell her unbearable moments, it is only thanks to the alert from neighbors and to an incredible burst of life, for her and little Alice, that she manages to tear from her father’s arms. before collapsing in front of his home.
But it was the sequel to the nightmare that would almost make Laura lose her words. How to tell what it is hard to believe, the situation is so absurd? Today, in France, we do not know how to judge domestic violence. In our Spanish neighbors was voted in 2014 a comprehensive protection law against gender violence, with the establishment of dedicated courts and the use of an electronic anti-reconciliation bracelet. With us, none of that: after a few months of preventive detention, Laura’s ex-spouse is released on Valentine’s Day, as if by cruel irony. He finds her despite the precautions of the young woman, who lives in fear since she knows that he has filed requests to leave. This afternoon when he confronts her in a parking lot, her father is present, but what drama has been avoided again? And how to justify the cascade of institutional violence, which fails to bury the victim? Judge who does not respond to his calls for help, court decision that wants to oblige him to bring Alice to see her father in the context of publicized visits, but also constant injunctions: above all not to rebuild your life, to dress soberly for the court, to remain calm when the defense tries to break it … We understand that Laura sometimes loses her words.
On the same subject
Reliving after domestic violence
It took the young woman a distress call on the networks for her executioner to be returned to detention, more than two months after his release. Then an immeasurable force to emerge victorious from legal hell. A year and a half to finally be able to say: “I am officially a victim”. The ex-spouse risked life imprisonment, he was sentenced to eight years in prison and five years of psycho-judicial follow-up. Little Alice is sheltered: her mother obtains the deprivation of parental rights, an extremely rare decision. “Justice admits that an abusive spouse cannot be a good father”, congratulates Laura, who experienced in pain the sacralization of the traditional family and the glorification of paterfamilias, even though he’s a potential murderer. “It’s logic, she explains. The country is ruled by men, the laws are written by men. So women and children … “
Their protection has become his credo. After nights of going through the penal code, hours of talking to the press, but also to the politicians concerned by the subject, she is at the same time a lawyer, communicator, activist. A particularly sharp Swiss army knife in the fight against domestic violence. On a personal level, however, Laura does not want to forget to live. A professional retraining is underway, as well as support for little Alice towards a normal life, far from post-traumatic stress and rituals that have become essential every evening to keep the nightmare at bay. A year after the verdict, Alice no longer needs us to barricade the house to sleep. But how many women and children still live in terror?
In 2019, AFP set up the Feminicides project, in order to enumerate and present the victims. On this October 25, 2020, International Day against Violence Against Women, we are already mourning 70 dead.
Specialized in identity issues and pop culture, Coline claims a committed approach to journalism. Its objectives: to offer subjects that tell the story of our time and amplify the voice …