J'Abuse

[cymrococh]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/26/french-jail-psychological-abuse-partners

 

French MPs have voted unanimously to make "psychological violence" within a couple an offence punishable by up to three years in prison as part of new measures aimed at improving protection for victims of domestic abuse.

 

Politicians from the left and right supported the passing of a law which singles out "repeated" verbal actions intended to hurt the victim's rights and dignity or their physical or mental health. As well as a jail sentence, offenders could be ordered to pay a fine of up to €75,000 (£66,600).

 

Supporters of the law claim an estimated 8% of women in France are psychologically abused by their partner. Chantal Brunel, a member of Nicolas Sarkozy's majority Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, described it as "a preventative measure as psychological violence always precedes [physical] blows".

 

Lawyer Luc Frémiot said it was important to take this symbolic step. "This is about making potential culprits understand there is no sanctuary and no bastion where this violence can be expressed," he said in the Le Monde newspaper website. He said psychological abuse was often the precursor to physical aggression.

 

The law, voted on by MPs last night, includes a clause under which people who have been ordered to stay away from their partners could be forced to wear an electronic tag. Nadine Morano, the junior family minister, said this would be an experimental measure only taken initially in limited areas.

 

In wider efforts to protect abuse victims, a four-month-long "protection order" would allow judges to evict the violent partner from the family home or, if the victim decided to leave, to arrange rehousing and provisionally grant child custody.

 

In France in 2008, 156 women are known to have been killed by their husband, partner or boyfriend. According to the government, 675,000 women have been the victims of violent abuse over the past two years.

 

There was unusual political consensus in the passing of the bill brought by a socialist MP and a representative of the right-wing UMP. It must now go to the senate for approval.

 

However there is division in legal circles as to how applicable the new law will prove. Critics have said it will be hard to know where to draw the line between insults and arguments on the one hand, and abuse on the other.

 

Rejecting this view, Frémiot said the law had no intention of outlawing lovers' tiffs or sporadic insults. "There is no possible confusion between [them] in the sense that psychological violence has to be defined by a repetition of events over time," he wrote. "So you can see clearly the difference between the idea of harassment and that of occasional straightforward troubles in the intimacy of a couple."

[smithdown]

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[charlie clown]

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[Tosh]

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