Florence Lobet, the founder of Violences Conjugales, Ca Vaut Pas l’Coup, visits a woman on the psychiatric ward at a Charleroi hospital. This teacher and mother of two was hospitalized based on a decision made during a meeting between Florence Lobet and the hospital psychiatrist. Early on in their relationship, the husband (“the very model of a perverse manipulator” according to the association’s leader) began to exert control over his wife: her spending, her schedule and her relationships. Psychological domination was later accompanied by first physical, then sexual, abuse. These three components continued to worsen until the couple finally split up. In the meanwhile, the teacher had attempted suicide on two occasions.
Violences Conjugales, Ca Vaut Pas l’Coup is a team created to support women who are victims of domestic violence. Two counselors look after victims in hospitals, providing advice, complete coaching covering all the different steps for them to take (doctors, lawyers, police, etc.), and psychological support. Over the course of a year, Florence Lobet works with approximately 250 people; each month, she sees one or two hospitalizations linked to psychological abuse: “Of the 600 women we have supported since 2004, there were 30 for whom it was too late and who sunk into a form of mental illness.”
March 16, 2011 – Charleroi – Belgium.
© Pierre-Yves GINET