She waited for the meeting to end. Pink coat, pink mask, she first listened carefully, for more than an hour and a half, to the interventions of those gathered, this Tuesday, January 11, in the large amphitheater of the Lille School of Journalism in the invitation of the Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Violence against Children (Ciivise). “Who wants to speak? », asks Edouard Durand, magistrate, who co-chairs the body with Nathalie Mathieu, general manager of the Doctors Bru association and its reception structure for young girls who are victims of incest.
The hand of the lady in pink is raised. But, suddenly panicked, she turns to her daughter, seated next to her: “I’m not going to make it…” She grabs the microphone, however, and the words come out, interspersed with silences. “I came here to testify… To say that when you experience rape when you are young… it will have lifelong repercussions, so protection is very important. » Her hand trembles a little, but she continues valiantly: “I am 54 years old, and I had traumatic amnesia for forty-five years. I just found out that… that I was abused by my father from 3 to 10, 11 years old. To tell you what hell I’ve been living for three years, I became agoraphobic, I couldn’t get out of my house so much I was scared. »
A sob, and she concludes: “So it’s a great victory today and a very big symbol, because I come from quite a distance. And it’s the first time that I’ve made such an important journey, that I’ve been away from my home… Because that’s what scares me. Accompanied by my daughter, we were able to make the trip to come here… so thank you. » Applause accompanies these last words, while mother and daughter embrace, in tears.
A chasm from childhood
Nantes, Bordeaux, Avignon, Lille… Since it undertook, on October 20, to meet the victims of incest and sexual violence once a month, the Ciivise has been confronted with these painful stories, exposed without blush at these public meetings. It is from these testimonies, but also from those received through its website and helplines – 0-805-802-804 for mainland France and 0-800-100-811 from overseas – that the commission, set up in March 2021, has the mission of developing public policy recommendations.
At each stage of this tour of France, which will stop on February 16 in Paris, it is the same ritual. The two co-presidents and the secretary general, Benoît Legrand, accompanied by a representative of the general direction of social cohesion and sometimes the feminist activist Ernestine Ronai, member of the Ciivise, are installed facing the public. Behind them, the coordinates of the commission are projected on a wall. After a brief introduction, the microphone circulates in the room for two hours. In each city, several dozen people – the vast majority of them women – make the trip; victims or relatives of victims, professionals concerned by the subject, they share their experience, sometimes explain ways of improvement.
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