Interview Incest, violence, harassment… Five questions to the founder of the “Papillons mailboxes” which collect the words of child victims

For the first time since the start of their deployment, the mailboxes of the “Les Papillons” association will lead to a trial next September. That of the incestuous grandfather whose granddaughter confided thanks to the device.

“If you can’t say it, write it”this is the watchword of the association The butterflies which fights against violence against children. For five years, it has been deploying a unique system by installing mailboxes for children in certain schools and after-school settings. Objective: to encourage those who are victims to speak out. Next September, thanks to this system, an incestuous grandfather will be tried before the Ain criminal court.

The association The butterflies specifies that it will systematically become a civil party in each of the cases brought to light by the mailbox system. Franceinfo met Laurent Boyet, 52, founder and president of the association The butterflies.

franceinfo: How was the Les Papillons association born?

Laurent Boyet: I created the association because I myself was the victim of rape, by my brother, from 6 to 9 years old. It took me 30 years to find the courage, the strength, to free my words. When I was the victim of these events, I couldn’t say it, even if I hoped for an outstretched hand. On the other hand, I managed to write it in a diary. I realized that the link that was missing in the entire chain of freeing the words of child victims was the link of writing. I promised myself that the children of today would not cross the same deserts as me. The goal for me was to find a system that was as close as possible to the children, where they are and that respects their time.

“I remembered that for me, at their age, there were two places where I hoped for a helping hand without daring to ask: it was in my school and in my football club.”

Laurent Boyet

at franceinfo

Since the launch of the system, how many testimonials have been collected?

We receive several thousand testimonials per year, even if we only have 250 mailboxes throughout France. This shows the extent of the phenomenon of violence suffered by children. And this is what pushes us to continue to want to develop these mailboxes.

How does the device work?

We sign an agreement with the municipality so we train someone who is designated by the municipality to explain the system to children in the form of workshops during after-school time with a short video slideshow. We explain to the children what an offense is, what they can be victims of, how the mailbox that has just been installed in their school will work and what purpose it will serve. It is the association which trains this resource person designated by the town hall, to explain the system, but also to detect signals of mistreatment and to gather feedback. Since it is important to be able to give keys to this person if a child were to say something to them.

Who collects these little notes and who reads them?

Following the agreement recorded with the municipalities, most of the time, it is municipal police officers or public road surveillance agents who, once the children have left, will collect the words. These words are scanned and sent via a secure email address to our mail analysis center at headquarters which is made up of psychologists employed by the association. These are the psychologists who analyze and process all the words we receive every day in the mailboxes.

“50% of the testimonies correspond to school harassment, 23% to intra-family physical violence and around 8% to situations of intra-family sexual violence.”

Laurent Boyet

at franceinfo

For the most serious facts, our psychologists either provide worrying information which they send to the cell for collecting worrying information in the department concerned, or when the danger is serious and immediate, they make a report to the public prosecutor of the department. . For the least serious words, they make prescriptions which they send to the contact person who has been designated by the town hall: this is the case for acts of school harassment. Sometimes we also go through the pHARe referent. This way, we can highlight situations, but it is always ultimately National Education which has the last word for the moment in matters of school harassment.

In what way is the affair of young Lily the culmination of your system?

It is an emblematic story of what justice can do when no adult comes to distort the child’s words. Lily submitted her note on Friday, it was in June 2022. It was sent to us the same day, during the lunch break. It was transformed into a report to the public prosecutor on Friday afternoon. And the following Wednesday, his grandfather, the perpetrator, was arrested.

“It shows that, when adults don’t come and distort the children’s words, things can go very quickly.”

Laurent Boyet

at franceinfo

This shows the effectiveness of our system. Because Lily perfectly understood the purpose of our box. She hoped for an outstretched hand. Only her best friend knew. She had been going through this for years, her cousins ​​too, but she didn’t know it. So she took on this role of heroine by freeing her words, by writing to us and that enabled this trial which will take place at the end of September 2024.

To what extent do you support victims?

I am in contact with Lily’s family. A contact which was very quick, very immediate by Lily’s father who is also the son of the attacker. Lily was incredibly lucky that her family believed her right away. His father, when he called me, told me how without our Papillons boxes, he didn’t know how it would have ended, or when it would have ended. Since then, I have accompanied them regularly, I waited for him to give me the date of the trial, I followed the developments, the referrals to the departmental assize court, etc. I am in regular contact with this family but perhaps there are other lawsuits that have been induced by our Papillons boxes. It’s just that we, as we are only factors, are not necessarily put in the loop, we are not necessarily aware. So here we take advantage of it since we are aware, we will support this family until the end.

Is the system well received by National Education?

It was very difficult to be accepted by National Education and it still is. This is why we sign agreements with town halls and install the system during after-school time which belongs to the municipalities. Because we have a lot of difficulty being accepted by National Education. There have been changes in recent months, academic directors who are more attentive, who are more caring, but it still remains complicated. National Education has the impression that with our mailboxes, we are stigmatizing them because the first reason why children write to us is school harassment. Although that is not our approach at all. We provide support to tell them about situations that they would not have known about without the Papillons boxes. Cases as emblematic as Lily’s can only help us to make them understand that we are really there for the good of the children and to ensure that the attackers stop harming them.