The shop's orange frame is a reminder that its previous occupant was a famous mobile phone operator.
Colors, this cell of the Beau Sevran shopping center is not lacking.
A pink chair, Chinese parasols hanging from the ceiling light and a portrait of Audrey Hepburn brighten the atmosphere of a place where dark ideas and dark stories are told.
For a little more than two years, Fatima, Yvette and other volunteers from local associations have been providing, between two clothing stores, the reception, listening and orientation points for women who are victims of domestic violence.
Such an initiative in a shopping center?
Surprising but on the whole logical, consider today all the stakeholders of the project.
Read also“Unique of its kind in Île-de-France”, a house for women victims of violence opens in Nanterre
"For some women, the only authorized outing is to go shopping," says Aline Derlot, director of Beau Sevran.
In France, 70% of people who visit shopping centers are women.
They are the ones who do the food shopping for the family.
It makes complete sense.
»
“Containment has brought this problem to light”
This 50-year-old succeeded Makha Diop at the start of the year, who had suggested opening a place dedicated to this cause.
The broad fabric of associations in Sevran did the rest, with the support of Fatou Touré, the head of the citizenship center of the town hall.
The municipality supports the initiative thanks, in particular, to the installation of a social worker within the police station of the city.
"We were working on the creation of a collective on violence against women when the Covid and confinement arrived, rewinds Fatima Ternullo, the president of the Potenti'elles Cité association.
At that time, the victims found themselves locked up 24 hours a day with their tormentor.
The lockdown has brought this issue to light.
»
The idea of creating a reception point within the shopping center took shape in July 2020, two months after the start of the country's gradual deconfinement.
A few months earlier, the information center on the rights of women and families in Seine-Saint-Denis (CIDFF 93) opened a similar device at Ilo, the shopping center located in Épinay-sur-Seine.
Then in 2021, it was in Créteil Soleil (Val-de-Marne) that a psychologist from CIDFF 94 established a permanence.
Sevran, September 21, 2022. "For some women, the only authorized outing is to go shopping," says Aline Derlot (left), director of Beau Sevran, here in discussion with volunteers Fatima Ternullo ( center) and Yvette Racadot.
LP/AA
“What impresses me in Sevran is the coordination between the associations, the town hall and the police”, underlines the director of the center.
At Beau Sevran, the associations take turns five days a week to listen to and advise the women who pass between the screens placed at the entrance to the shop.
This one has no sign.
“We are there but we are not shouting it from the rooftops”, justifies Aline Derlot.
In two years, a hundred files have been sent to the police
That Wednesday, Fatima Ternullo is on duty alongside Yvette Racadot, the president of the Mazaryk residence tenants' association located in Beaudottes, near the shopping center.
Volunteers from the Rougemont Solidarité, Sunshine and CIDFF 93 associations, as well as a psychologist and a lawyer, took over the following days.
Depending on the situation, the president of Potenti'elles Cité directs her interlocutors to the appropriate professionals.
“If necessary, we accompany them to the police station,” says the fifty-year-old.
During its first year of existence, the reception point recorded more than 160 visits, which resulted in around fifty police procedures.
A number that would have doubled today.
The profiles of the victims are multiple.
“These are more often women of 50, 60, whose husbands are retired, observes Fatima Ternullo.
In these cases, it is often moral harassment, like the man who turned off the water when his wife was taking a shower.
For the youngest, it is more physical violence.
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The center of Sevran as a model
That morning, Yvette Racadot had a long talk with a mother whose husband had just kicked her out.
"I'm going to make it a priority," she says, referring to the long list of victims of violence whom she helps to find a roof over their heads.
A few minutes later, a resident of Aulnay-sous-Bois called the two volunteers: "I called 39 19 (
the national number for victims of domestic violence
) who directed me to the SOS association. Women, to Bondy, but there is no response.
I understand why there are so many feminicides.
I have suffered for 20 years!
Pressed, she promised to return to Beau Sevran within the week.
Proof of the opportunity of these initiatives, the Klépierre group, to which Beau Sevran belongs, concluded an agreement last summer with the National Federation of CIDFF with the aim of developing hotlines and reception points in its centers in the rest of the France.
"Domestic violence is not a neighborhood story, nor a standard of living," says Aline Derlot.
