HAS the occasion of the 23e International Day for the fight against violence against women, tens of thousands of women marched on November 19, to demand the necessary means to support the voice of women victims of violence and to fight against this structural scourge. Marseille, Paris, Lyon, Nantes, Lille, Strasbourg, Bordeaux: clouds of purple to carry these words so important for the rights of women to live free and safe.
“I am a woman, and in general, women are much less recognized, it is undeniable. It’s the same everywhere.” explained Annie Ernaux. Yes, it’s the same everywhere. And yet. Thirty-three percent of the French population lives in rural areas. A quarter of the calls handled by the special number 39 19 come from an essentially rural department. Nearly 50% of feminicides take place there.
These numbers are striking. But they can be explained, in particular, by a territorial network of access to rights that is much less dense in rural areas than in urban or peri-urban contexts. Consequently, the violence that rural women experience is too often ignored and greatly underestimated.
Accumulation of aggression risk factors
Also, the National Solidarity Women Federation notes that “Rural women experience double violence. For them, getting out of domestic violence and leaving the violent spouse represents a daily struggle specific to their environment.. Women living in rural areas accumulate risk factors for aggression, the main factor aggravating violence being their isolation. Geographical isolation, but also moral, accentuated by entrenched gender stereotypes and strong social control.
Solutions exist. They were revealed in particular by the report of the fact-finding mission of the delegation for women’s rights of the Senate, “Women and rural areas: to put an end to the white zones of equality”. First, we need to set up and finance, within the gendarmerie, units specializing in the fight against sexual and gender-based violence. These specialized brigades would make it possible to have trained professionals available around the clock to receive women who are victims of domestic violence in the best possible conditions, and to carry out systematic investigation work.
Similarly, brigades of gendarmes and police should go directly to meet women to collect their complaints about domestic violence. Because crossing the door of a police station can be impossible in many territories. This is what we obtained, in the form of a five-year experiment, during the examination of the orientation and programming law of the Ministry of the Interior (Lopmi) in the National Assembly.
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