“This is the 56th march or rally that I have done since 2005 for a feminicide”, laments Ernestine Ronai, president of the Departmental Observatory of Violence Against Women, this Monday evening. With about fifty people, she paid tribute to Valéryia, stabbed with more than a dozen stab wounds by her spouse, on February 13, in Sevran (Seine-Saint-Denis).
In Seine-Saint-Denis, it has become a ritual. For each “conjugal” murder, a commemoration pays tribute to the victim. This year, there are already three violent deaths of women committed by their companion. A week ago, Ernestine Ronai, a tireless advocate for the cause of women, took part in the silent march for Flora, in Bondy. This 34-year-old woman had been strangled by her husband on February 11.
Next Tuesday, it is for Assia that Ernestine and Marie-Christine Mourgues, from SOS Femmes 93, will walk with the same emotion. Assia, strangled and dismembered by her husband on January 30, in Montreuil.
“We will never accept this violence against women. There is nothing fatal”, denounces Ernestine Ronai. Since she has been fighting to implement protective measures for abused women, she knows that we must be concerned “from the first violence. You have to believe women and protect them right away. »
Valéryia had never filed a complaint
Despite a whole series of devices tested in Seine-Saint-Denis and extended throughout France, the count of feminicides makes you dizzy. In France, there have already been 28 feminicides according to representatives of associations, since the beginning of the year. Valéryia, 51, would have been the 17th.
The department of Seine-Saint-Denis has however been a pioneer in terms of prevention measures, such as the grave danger telephone, the anti-reconciliation bracelet or the protection order, which allows victims to reveal violence and to be placed safe before even filing a complaint. “If there was no feminist mobilization, women would continue to die in silence”, estimates the deputy (Nupes, LFI) Clémentine Autain, present this Monday evening. She also deplores that “80% of complaints are dismissed without further action”.
Valeryia wasn’t even at that stage. This Bulgarian national had never filed a handrail, let alone a complaint. She had never reported to the listening point installed in the gallery of the Beau Sevran shopping center. Since the end of confinement, several associations have discreetly received women victims of violence there.
Since 2016, Valéryia had been living in a social hotel, which houses people sent by 115, the social emergency number. With her husband and 14-year-old son, she occupied one of the 60 rooms at the Balladins. Three single beds in a small space.
Under the eyes of his 14-year-old son
An employee in charge of the census at the beginning of the year remembers this woman very well. “She was very smiling and I remember well her row of gold teeth,” she describes. She had come to distribute her forms and remained on the threshold to explain the questionnaire. As Valéryia did not speak French well, it was her 14-year-old son who translated.
She had noticed this teenager playing the PlayStation in the hallway, for lack of space in the room. Then she went back to collect the files. “It was Saturday, February 11. She was killed on the night of Sunday to Monday, ”recalls the municipal employee.
On the other hand, she has never seen the husband, a Serb. “I was really touched when I found out what had happened,” she says.
Valeryia is not the only victim. Her bloody murder took place before the eyes of her son. The teenager has been hospitalized since the tragedy. He was taken care of by the “feminicide” protocol, which allows children, collateral victims of the murder, to be followed in a hospital pediatric service specializing in trauma.
At the end of the rally, dozens of white roses were placed in front of a sign that read “In tribute to Valéryia killed by her spouse on February 13, 2023”. No family members were present.
