Posted Monday, August 4, 2003; 18.25BST

	JOCK FISTICK/REPORTERS for TIME A VOICE FOR VICTIMS: Conselor Bossé took herself out of a violent relationship

Betsy Stanko, a University of London criminologist, agrees: "If you think in categories, you lose the clues." To Stanko, who has worked on domestic violence for 25 years, "controlling behavior" is a consistent theme. "When someone walks away from control, violence may escalate." While research suggests there are no social or ethnic characteristics that determine domestic violence, she adds, there are factors and situations that influence the tendency toward violence — which is more often than not committed by men against women. Alcohol misuse is one. And when violence has happened once, it is thought more likely to recur. For many women, pregnancy can exacerbate existing violence.

Less than 10 km from Trintignant's hospital room in Neuilly — in the immigrant neighborhood of Gennevilliers, northwest of Paris — the Escale women's center seeks to help women and children at the other end of the social spectrum. Here, the women, many of whom come from Africa, are poor, sometimes cannot read, write or speak French, and often are beaten by a daunting social-services network as well as by their husbands. "These women do not have the resources to get help on their own," says psychologist Martine La Berge. "They don't know how to use the system to get themselves out of a violent situation."

For many women, particularly those in Europe's immigrant communities, leaving a violent relationship can seem impossible. "We have to recognize that when we're speaking to Asian women, for example, their problem may be imprisonment or forced marriages," says 43-year-old Sandra in Bristol, who asked that her real name not be used. She draws on her own past experiences with a violent partner in her work with Women's Aid, Britain's domestic-violence charity. Though it is difficult to generalize, south Asian women may find it hard to reach out for help, for fear of bringing sharam, or shame, upon a family in a tight-knit community. "She is not just leaving the perpetrator, she is leaving her only support structure," says Rita Rupal, director of Newham Asian Women's Project in London.

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