The first time, it is an inappropriate gesture of his father at bath time. Rose is 4 years old, but the psychologist talks about a misunderstanding. Only her mother can believe her. “Anyway, every time, there is nothing. It was still not enough, there is never an irrefutable proof. That, I have been told over and over and over and over again.”, testifies Claire. Rose’s mother has increased the number of reports of repeated touching. Her daughter was even heard by the police, to no avail. “There the same, we are told that we are dealing with trained professionals, but not at all”, she denounces.
“We find ourselves in front of a kind of big Golgoth who says to him ‘so your father like that, he put his fingers in your ass?’ And who goes on to say ‘mum, she wants to give you a Mcdo if you say things against daddy?’
What Claire went through is the experience of many mothers. This is what reveals in a report, unveiled a week after a first public meeting organized in Nantes, the independent Commission on incest and sexual violence against children. The Ciivise highlights in a first part the “mothers in struggle“, these women who denounce cases of incest in their children, but who nevertheless find themselves weakened by the justice system, or even accused of manipulating their child.
In Claire’s case, the case is closed. When she begins to refuse to respect joint custody, she goes into correctional. His daughter was then 6 years old. “I was sentenced by the prosecutor for non-presentation of a child (the sentence can go up to one year of imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 euros).The prosecutor told me that I confused protection and stubbornness, that there was absolutely no proof and that it was my most horrible fantasies of incest that I was projecting on my daughter “, she says.
Years go by, joint custody continues. In 2021, Rose is 13 years old. The memories come back to her at the beginning of the year and she finally really indulges in college. “She told the psychologist that her father gave her a bitter glass of water in the evening that put her to sleep. And that the next day she woke up, that she didn’t have her pajama bottoms anymore and that she had the wet panties. She was having dark thoughts, she was saying ‘I run away or I kill myself or I kill him, but I don’t want to go back there anymore’.
Irene * is in her forties and has a little boy. She too had to pay a fine in similar circumstances. This mother, separated from her violent ex-partner, has joint custody of their 10-year-old son. The day he reveals that he has always been raped by his father, Irene runs to lodge a complaint. Except that the minors’ brigade, which questions her six months later, suspects her of revenge: “They asked me why I had separated. By asking all these questions, they wanted to justify a parental conflict. They were saying ‘the mother what she wants is to destroy the life of this man.’ C t is terrible because we are going to ask for help and we find ourselves immediately on the dock. Me as a mother who would have pissed off my child, and my son who is considered a liar. “
Irene rewinds, tells the judge of the elements on her ex-spouse which take on a new meaning after the testimony of her son. “He (the father) went to sadomasochistic sites and he took our child’s first name as a nickname. And that I gave to the judge.” But he is accused of persisting.
“The judge was telling me ‘revenge is enough now, ma’am’. So in fact there is no protection. And the threat of having the child taken away makes you go crazy!”
As in Claire’s case, justice asks her to let the father see his son. Out of the question for Irene who must then pay a fine. A situation that the Commission on Incest would like to see disappear. It recommends the suspension of criminal proceedings against the mother, in the event of non-presentation of the child for these reasons, and the systematic withdrawal of parental authority, in the event of the conviction of the father.
* The first name has been changed
Incest: testimonies from mothers of abused children – Report by Agathe Mahuet
to listen