This last statistical assessment comes to document once again the massive nature of male violence against women
by Solène Cordier
The upward trend cannot be denied. In 2021, the police recorded 207,743 victims of domestic violence, according to an analysis disseminated Thursday, December 15 by the Ministerial Statistical Service of Internal Security (SSMSI). An increase of 21 % compared to 2020, marked by the successive confinements linked to the COVID-19. Compared to 2016, the number has almost doubled.
Two thirds of the victims report physical violence (66 %), almost a third underwent a verbal or psychological violence. 4 % of victims report sexual violence within the couple. The vast majority of victims are women (87 %), and the authors are massively men (89 %).
Five years after the #MeToo detonator, the authors note that “the increasingly strong awareness of society to the phenomenon of domestic violence and the measures adopted at the end of the Grenelle of domestic violence to encourage victims to bring complaint led to a release of speech which benefited more from ancient facts than the most recent facts “. Thus, 28 % of the facts recorded in 2021 are prior to this date.
The note indicates that “half of the victims are between 25 and 39 years old”, concluding a little quickly that “the violence between spouses/boyfriends [are] very rare among those under 20 (5 % of victims) and from 60 years (4 % of victims) “. On the contrary, associations have been alarmed, in recent years, of the strong exposure to the violence of very young women, which the victimization surveys are reported. Their low representation in official statistics would be more explained by their difficulty in reporting what they undergo. As for older women, “there is a real problem of non-denunciation of domestic violence” linked in part to their isolation and the difficulty of leaving the home, assures Françoise Brié, director general of the National Solidarity Federation.
Far from reality
Another element that surprises when reading this document: the low proportion of facts of domestic violence in rural areas. “On average, throughout the territory, the rate of women victims of domestic violence recorded for 1,000 inhabitants aged 15 to 64 is 8.4 but only 5.8 for rural municipalities,” read. Again, the figures mask part of reality. “Many women in rural areas find it more difficult to go to the police station of police or gendarmerie, which can be twenty kilometers from their home, explains Marie-Pierre Badré, president of the Hubertine-Auclert center, who has A regional violence observatory for women in Ile-de-France. Far from the anonymity of major cities, the inter-self can also be a brake on the complaint, she adds. Almost half of the feminicides take place in rural areas.
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