Domestic violence

Yana and Sayid are two 25 and 28 year-old Syrian refugees who arrived in France almost 2 years ago. The couple settled in a small housing estate in the countryside, in Burgundy.

Welcomed openly in the village, they have rapidly found part-time work and are starting to participate in local life. Every Sunday, Sayid goes to football training with Jean-Michel who lives two houses down from them. Yana is becoming friends with his wife Nathalie and sometimes looks after the two young children of the family.

Yana is intrigued by the particularly fearful and unpredictable behaviour of the children and is beginning to understand that the father is regularly violent with their mother. She often hears screaming coming from the neighbouring house and on several occasions she notices the marks of blows to Nathalie’s face and arms.

She attempts to approach the subject with Nathalie but she doesn’t know if she has the right to interfere with the private life of her neighbours. The several attempts that she has made have met with a wall of silence. Yana speaks to her husband, who is astonished and embarrassed and who advises her to ignore it in order to avoid problems in the village.

What can Yana do to help her neighbour and her children?

In France, violence towards women is a subject that is taken seriously: the law protects them from domestic violence. https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F12544

Numerous associations for helping victims can be called upon. Yana can consult this flyer from arrêtons les violences or call the free and anonymous number: 3919. The people who respond are there to listen to the women who want to be heard and their families and friends. They can orientate Yana towards the local support services who need to be alerted about the situation of her neighbour.

From a legal point of view, it is certainly possible for Nathalie to have the violence of her partner recognised and protect herself from it. In this way, she has several possibilities:

  • Signal the events to the justice system without pressing charges by getting a restraining order from the police,
  • Demanding a protection order which will allow them to shelter her from her husband (by evicting him from their home or putting Nathalie up in a welcome center),
  • Press charges, which will lead to the opening of an enquiry.

In all the cases, it is better to signal the situation to social services before worse things happen…