“I want sex,” says the boy, showing her his penis. The boy enters the room, kisses the 10-year-old girl and touches her. Eve pushes him away. On three or four occasions, the boy attacked her, without the knowledge of those involved. Eve ends up confiding in them. She says she feels “weird, because[ils sont] children.”
It was in the spring of 2022 that Nancy’s confidence in the system changed. Her daughter is sexually assaulted by a boy at the rehabilitation center. However, it was only six weeks later that the DPJ informed him of this. Scandalized, Nancy files a complaint.
Such a delay is “unacceptable”, underlines in her report the deputy commissioner for complaints of the CISSS des Laurentides Marie-Ève Rousseau. “You should therefore have been diligently informed of the situation. […] It is regrettable that this was not done,” she concludes. “I’m sorry,” she adds. The deputy commissioner makes a series of recommendations to the DPJ.
Even if the DPJ recognizes that Eve was sexually assaulted, she concludes that her safety and development are not “compromised” and closes the file. To reach this conclusion, the DPJ worker maintains that the attack did not have “an impact for the moment” on Eve.
“It had no impact?” It had no impact? », repeats Professor Alain Roy, amazed.
We are abandoning this child. The entire system is failing in every way. I am speechless.
Me Alain Roy, professor of law at the University of Montreal, specialist in children’s law and family law
It goes without saying, in his opinion, that the parents had the right to be informed. Also, a sexually assaulted child certainly needs close monitoring. “It is more than surprising to conclude that sexual assault on a 10-year-old child has no impact,” insists the professor.
“It’s revolting,” he added.
As she worries about the long-term consequences of this attack, Nancy turned to IVAC, the compensation program for victims of crime. The organization then recognized its daughter as the victim of a criminal act. “Why didn’t the DPJ do it? », asks the mother. But the DPJ refuses to have Eve followed by the psychologist chosen by Nancy, deplores the latter.
It was not until May 2023 that a judge ordered that Eve could benefit from a psychological evaluation. His follow-up had still not started at the beginning of September, according to his mother.
Nancy has since filed a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Youth Rights. In a letter dated August 2023, the investigator writes that she must continue her investigation to shed light on the services offered to Ève following the report of sexual abuse, as well as on the measures put in place by the DPJ to prevent sexual abuse. .
In the summer of 2022, Ève was entrusted to the DPJ for another full year after several episodes of disorganization. The DPJ accuses her mother’s new partner of having squeezed her neck during a crisis. She threatens to stick a “knife in the eye” of her father-in-law. The latter tells The Press having intervened moderately because the little girl was attacking her mother.
The DPJ accuses the mother of showing “a low capacity for introspection and self-criticism” and of minimizing her partner’s actions.
All is not dark: the specialist doctor who follows Eve believes that she is making “a lot of progress” in her management of emotions and her crises in the rehabilitation center in the summer of 2022, summarize the notes of a speaker of the DPJ.