It is a veil that is being torn, little by little, on one of the most taboo sexual violence there is: incest. A violence of which one in ten people in the French population would be the victim. The victims, supported by feminist movements, are beginning to publicly denounce these intra-family attacks. A dilemma for many of them, because revealing incest means attacking the family and causing a potential cataclysm. Often crushed by a form of guilt, a large number of victims always refuse to express themselves.
In the documentary Incest: say it and hear itofAndréa Rawlins-Gaston, seven of them tell how their father, their brother, their grandfather or a cousin made them experience the worst. Among these witnesses, Corinne Masiero, the leading actress of the series Captain Marleau recounts having been attacked several times by a cousin between the ages of 8 and 13, she only remembered these gestures years later, when she found a family photo.
“When you’re a kid, you feel that when something happens to you within the family, you have to keep your mouth shut. You mustn’t touch the sacrosanct family.”
Corinne Masieroin “Incest, say it and hear it”
The ravages of this violence committed within the family are innumerable. LVictims can develop serious symptoms and behaviors such as depression, addictive behavior, eating disorders and psychiatric disorders, sometimes even attempting suicide.
Therapies can help to repair what can be of these stolen childhoods and adolescences. Corinne Masiero evokes it in the documentary. “Since I started therapy, reveals the actress, I started to accept that I was a woman, that I had the right. (…) I can allow myself to be me.”
The documentary Incest, say it and hear it airs Monday, September 26 at 11:10 p.m. on France 3.