The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France, Thursday, November 3, in a case brought before it by a French national, born in 1971 and placed from her 5 years to her 20 years in foster care in Tarn-et-Garonne.
France L. applied to the jurisdiction of the Council of Europe for two main reasons. On the one hand, claiming to be a victim of sexual abuse within her foster family for thirteen years, she felt that she had not been protected by child welfare (ASE). On the other hand, coming from a family of Muslim faith, she questioned the role of the ASE services, which did not enforce the requirement of religious neutrality theoretically required for the host families, the his being a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Having failed to have the national courts recognize the shortcomings of the State and the department, guarantors of the protection of minors in care, France L. finally argued that she had not had a “effective remedy” making it possible to examine the responsibility of the ASE, due to a bad application of the rules of limitation.
prescribed facts
In its judgment, the ECHR returns at length to the journey of the former child in care and to her legal battles. At the age of 5, she was therefore entrusted to the child welfare services and placed with a foster family. She will stay there until her 20th birthday, from 1976 to 1991.
From her arrival to the age of 17, she was the victim of “sexual violence” and “indecent assault” perpetrated by the father of her foster family, she denounced by filing a complaint for these reasons years later. later, in 1999, with the public prosecutor of the Créteil tribunal de grande instance. Before that, she tries to alert those around her at least twice; at the age of 14, she confides in a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and again at the age of 23, with a leader of the congregation, which gives rise to a confrontation between the young wife and the respondent, who contests.
On the other hand, heard by the police after the filing of a complaint, the latter will partially recognize the facts, minimizing them. The complaint was dismissed in February 2000, the facts being time-barred.
The young woman does not give up. She reiterates by filing a new complaint a year later, with civil action. The father of the foster family is indicted for “rape of a minor by a person in authority”, then for “sexual assault by a person in authority”. But, because of the prescription rules then in force, a dismissal order was finally pronounced, in September 2003.
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