“We must be aware of the extent of sexual violence against children”, alert this Tuesday morning the judge for children and co-president of the Independent Commission on Incest, Édouard Durand, guest of France Bleu Vaucluse. “And adults have to go looking for child victims to protect them”, he continues. The members of this commission, the Ciivise, are organizing a public meeting this Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. at the University of Avignon, in the AT01 amphitheater. The teams will also visit the exhibition “Capturing the traumatic image” at the Montfavet hospital.
France Bleu Vaucluse: So why this visit to Avignon today?
Édouard Durand: Since the commission was set up, our mission is to hear from people who were victims of sexual violence in their childhood. This is what we do by various means, in particular by coming to meet these people, by moving as we did in Nantes, Bordeaux and today in Avignon. We welcome all the people who want to come, who trust the commission and we are there to listen to them.
And these public meetings are not the only way to seize the Ciivise?
We collect these words through the telephone platform that we organized on September 21, through the letters that people write to us and to which, of course, we respond through the meetings that we organize at the committee. We see people for an hour, two hours, or even longer. And then, we organized these public meetings and for the first one, we were wondering how they were going to go. We saw something that was absolutely magnificent, that is to say a very great benevolence and a very great solidarity between the people who listen to each other and who support each other.
Each year in France, 160,000 children are subjected to sexual violence, including incest. Has this figure been on the rise in recent years?
First of all, it is an extremely important, startling figure. But the whole of society must realize the extent of sexual violence against children and the extent of it. We must both be aware of the extremely large number of such violence and its seriousness, which constitutes an extremely serious attack on the dignity and integrity of the subject who is subjected to it. But to say that they are on the rise is always a delicate question. What we do know is that this violence is the subject of massive exposure. Few complaints in relation to the number of real facts and few revelations of these facts. We must therefore encourage adults to seek out revelations of violence against children.
And you, have you collected thousands of testimonials since the launch of your commission?
Yes, in about two months, we have collected nearly 8,000 testimonials. It is therefore an extremely massive movement. The wave was underground and it is emerging. This is called the liberation of speech. Until a few years ago, this sexual violence was trivialized in social discourse, in public discourse. You could hear people on a radio or television station saying “how does that concern us after all”.
Today, we could no longer hold this discourse because the people who were victims of it have discovered that they are numerous, united, powerful. And also because the state of knowledge, in particular on psycho-trauma, shows us the extreme gravity of this violence. What needs to change is that not only do we need this general discourse that no longer tolerates sexual violence against children, but every real child must be provided with equally real protection.
What messages do you want to convey?
The first message is that adults must go and seek revelations of violence. These 160,000 children who are victims of violence every year, we must seek them out in order to protect them.
You will also meet the teams from the Montfavet hospital in Avignon. How are the actors in the field trained on this question? And do we need to train them more?
Yes. It is necessary that all the professionals of the whole chain of protection, doctors, nurses, social workers, educators, judges, journalists too. If you will allow me to say it, also be trained so that everyone is building up their skills at the same time because a chain is only worth what the weakest link in the chain is worth. Training is not enough. We also need the law, legislation that I call more imperative to set the course for protection. In particular, the Commission will have to ask itself the question of limitation. At this stage, there is no reason to close the door on this reflection.