In the past, the status of victims was respected. There was a form of compassion towards them. But what about today? In too many cases, the victims’ journey is that of an obstacle course.
We all remember the tragedy experienced by these women who pursue a sexual aggressor before the courts. In criminal cases, the proof that must be provided beyond any doubt requires them to follow a flawless path to have their aggressor convicted.
The slightest contradiction in a detail pointed out by the defense attorney can derail the trial in favor of the accused. In this case, the victim must bear the burden of an undeserved injustice and the aggressor benefits from an equally unjustifiable acquittal.
Similarly, identity theft forces the targeted individual to defend himself to prove that someone has interfered in his private life. Often left to his own devices, he will have to undertake all the steps to recover his stolen identity.
It could take months, even years, before a return to normal life. Will the arrival of artificial intelligence not facilitate this phenomenon of identity theft?
Other situations claim victims in the world of work. Indeed, many horror stories make headlines in the media, they involve different forms of harassment by bosses towards subordinates or even between employees.
Even though there are mechanisms in place to prevent such excesses and policies to support victims, most of the time they come out with after-effects that force them to change jobs; the aggressors stay, the victims leave.
Social media is also a great place to anonymously attack people who think differently. Like wolves in a pack, some attack a target prey and, like scavengers, they abandon the carcass to attack a new victim.
The media, artistic, political circles and all those who occupy a public space could testify to this. In this vein, will the recent law on the protection of municipal elected officials (law 57) adopted in June effectively protect them?
School is also a place of bullying. Whether through social media or directly in the classroom, victims are subjected to repetitive and insidious harassment by students who force them into their victimized solitude, despite the commendable efforts of school staff to counter this phenomenon.
These behaviors have disastrous consequences for the victims, who experience periods of depression leading some of them to suicide. Others must change schools, while the bullies remain in place.
Similarly, if you are unfortunate enough to have a vexatious neighbor, he will find a thousand ways to disturb your peace and quiet at home.
These people suffering from querulousness feel continually persecuted by those around them. Perceiving themselves as victims, they react by systematically attacking those supposedly responsible for their misfortune. They thus feed on the legitimate reactions that they provoke. This is a typical case of role reversal, the aggressor mutating into the victim, the attacked becoming the aggressor.
Are we not also witnessing disorders that leave little room for victims, whose lives become hell? Like these women who can no longer bear witness to their state of torture, having been murdered by a violent spouse, who too often drags his children along in his escape from a tragedy that seems to him to have no way out.