Tribune. Since the beginning of the year, incest and the way in which we protect (or not) children from violence have burst onto the public scene, pushing the sound barrier to millions of voices that were previously often trivialized or denied. In France, millions of children are victims of verbal, physical or sexual abuse.
This week again, the Saved report showed the extent of this violence within the Catholic Church. For a few months now, we have seen a society which, dumbfounded, has finally become aware of the extent of sexual violence suffered by children, most often from a father, stepfather, brother, uncle or grandfather.
However, we have learned of the postponement of the Senate consideration of the government’s child protection bill. More than 300,000 children are affected. This bill aims to finally put the protection of children in care at the heart of debates, an opportunity to bring the issue of sexual violence to which children are subjected in the public sphere.
This decision to postpone is incomprehensible. Professionals and professionals in child protection, education, health, artists and activists, we ask the question: will the president, before the end of his five-year term, mobilize for a policy of ambitious, effective and funded child protection?
Violated rights
We lack the means to make the fundamental rights of children effective. The fundamental right to live in safety. The fundamental right to be fed and to have a home. The fundamental right to health and education.
These fundamental rights are violated today. We see it every week in the field, for example:
– when a man attacks his son-in-law and senior officials, informed, do not warn the prosecutor as they are nevertheless obliged to do;
– when a child victim of incest must continue to visit her criminal father in prison because the latter has retained parental authority, or when another is handed over to her incestuous father when he is 8 years old when he leaves prison;
– when a child victim of violence arrives at the hospital with traces of old fractures, that he is treated and handed over to his parents without notification;
– when a placed child or an unaccompanied minor is accommodated in a hotel, tossed about from one week to the next in structures which are not authorized, without any educational supervision;
– when, in certain departments, between the time of the placement decision pronounced by the judge and the actual placement, eighteen months pass, endangering the life of children;
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