France lifts obstacles to help women report abuse

FRANCE is to allow women to formally report sexual abuse and domestic violence from a safe refuge rather than attend a police station where they may feel uncomfortable filing a report.

The measure comes after tens of thousands of women shared testimonies online about police victim-blaming or mishandling complaints as they tried to report sexual abuse.

Marlene Schiappa, a junior interior minister, said alternative locations for filing complaints could include a friend’s home, their GP’S surgery, a solicitor’s office or a hospital.

“There are women who tell us that they don’t dare to come to a police station because they are afraid of not being welcomed, because it’s hard to talk about things that are taboo with an unknown person in uniform in a foreign environment,” she said.

“That’s why we are lifting the obstacles they are facing, one after the other.”

The initiative will see police officers sent to locations where victims have sought refuge to take their statements.

Only 10 per cent of victims of sexual abuse file a formal complaint, according to an annual survey led by the national statistics bureau of France.

Police this week announced there had been a 10 per cent rise in reports of domestic violence during 2020.

Ms Schiappa added: “I want to value and support the action of the police forces ... and to remind everyone, once again, that in the vast majority of cases complaints are handled with a lot of empathy, a lot of support. But, for the minority of cases in which it goes badly, it is obviously inadmissible.”

The 13th arrondissement of Paris has been selected, along with other areas in the country, to be the first to implement the new process of filing complaints.