Posted Monday, August 4, 2003; 18.25BST
"Almost every case of domestic violence involves some sort of sexual violence," says Catherine Valadaud, head of the Louis Labé Center, an emergency-housing service in Paris. "In the cases of rape within a marriage, it is extremely important that women realize that they are victims. Society still sees it as a woman's duty to have sex with her husband, no matter what the conditions. We need to change the way we think."

Still, many men continue to view themselves as the victims. "Hardly any man, even today, comes to us due to a consciousness that he is guilty," says psychologist Hans Schmidt, co-founder of JederMann, a German organization working with male perpetrators of domestic violence. "They say they could not assert themselves in any other way, their hand slipped — that they would not have had to become violent if their female partners had acted differently." In 26 sessions of group therapy, the men explore — often through role play — concepts of violence, masculine behavior and role models.

"To have the picture of what is really happening, you have to interview women," says Linda Laura Sabbadini, director of statistics on conditions and quality of life for ISTAT, Italy's National Institute for Statistics. "People have the idea that sexual violence is committed by strangers, that it happens in the street. On the contrary, almost 80% of sexual violence in Italy is done by people known to the victim and takes place much more frequently in places you do not expect it: the car, the house, the houses of people you know."

As bad as the situation often is in western Europe, it is even tougher for women in Russia and other countries of central and eastern Europe. A 2002 survey by the Women's Council of Moscow State University indicated that 18% of Russian women suffer "regular and cruel physical treatment" at the hands of a husband or lover. Many abused women turn to the Russian Association of Crisis Centers for Women, rather than to the police, for help. Some 96,000 did so in 2002. Few domestic-violence victims trust the police to properly investigate a complaint and bring a culprit to justice, and over 12,000 women are thought to die annually at their partners' hands. The authorities tend to view domestic violence as a family affair rather than a crime, and the police often call complaints "saucepan cases." Varvara Vikhrova, 20, is one of the fortunate victims. Last month, as the Muscovite was talking in the courtyard of her house with a man with whom she and her husband, Ilya, 29, were acquainted, "Ilya just popped up from around the corner, said hi to the man and slammed his fist into my face so hard that my nose is still swollen." He threatened to beat her again if she did not "behave."

Vikhrova, the mother of their 3-year-old son, saw a doctor right away and obtained a medical certificate, which she took to the police. The authorities told her they could either pack Ilya off to prison for three years for assault and battery, or fine and warn him — but a second offense would mean five years in prison. "I chose the second option," she says, "because I was afraid that three years later, when he came back from jail, he would beat me to a pulp." The couple are now divorced.

Colette, Marie Trintignant's final character, explored the dark battles between independent identity and passionate love. In a world where, for so many women, that love can give way to violence, only changed attitudes and official action can help them heal.

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