In Noisy-le-Sec, the town hall targets perpetrators of domestic violence

The poster is deliberately sober, with white text on a black background. “It was just a little couple’s argument that got a little out of hand”, we can read there, in front of the Auchan supermarket, on Rue Jean-Jaurès, in Noisy-le-Sec (Saint-Saint-Denis). During the week of November 25, twenty-one more posters were put up around town offering two more quotes (“It was just a slap… but it’s the first time” where “I won’t do it again… but he was really looking for it! »).

These words were not chosen by chance: they were uttered by loudmouths during hearings at the local police station. With this shocking campaign, the municipality continues the fight it started two years ago against violence against women, first of all by raising the awareness of the perpetrators, who rarely stand out during these initiatives.

This approach was devised by Gaia Riet Moskowski, a social worker at the Noisy-le-Sec police station. Since January 2020, she has been accompanying women victims of violence there to file complaints, but at the same time she is working with the perpetrators. For this poster campaign, he asked the local Family Protection Brigade to reveal the ten most common justifications domestic violence perpetrators make in the police department. Three of them were selected for posters on the street, the rest were distributed on social networks and the website of the municipality. The project was implemented together with the National Federation of Associations and Centers for the Care of Victims of Family and Domestic Violence (Fnacav).

Tap “Invisible to all”

Through this campaign, Gaia Riet Moskovsky hopes to fill the gap in working with perpetrators of domestic violence in France. “only.