In Belgium, a 14-year-old girl committed suicide in May 2021. She had been raped in a cemetery in Ghent. His attackers had filmed the scene broadcast on social networks.
In mid May 2021, in Belgium, a 14-year-old girl committed suicide four days after being the victim of a gang rape filmed in a cemetery in Ghent. The images had been posted on social networks. According to the East Flanders prosecution, five suspects were arrested after being identified on the video. Following their arrest “the two adults were imprisoned, and the three minors placed” in specialized institutions, explains a press release. The father of the teenager confided in the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad. He says that the dissemination of these images prompted his daughter to end her life: “These images were the straw that broke the camel’s back for her, (…) her whole world fell apart.”
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The first elements of the investigation reveal that the young girl thought she had a date with only one friend. When she arrived at the cemetery, she and her friend were joined by four other people. All five assaulted the teenager.
If she was a victim of gang rape, he was also unfortunately the victim of revenge porn, a recent offense that was created to respond to a social problem and has been provided for in the penal code since 2016, in France. The consequences of this rape and cyberviolence are the feeling of loneliness and isolation that increases for the victim of this scourge.
According to a report relayed by the National Commission for Informatics and Freedoms (Cnil), 10% of the European population has been or will one day be harassed, especially online. Cyberbullying is legally wrong. In France, latest figures for 2019 reveal that “94,000 adult women say they have been victims of rape and / or attempted rape over a year.” The same report of this investigation relayed by the newspaper Release declares: “Rape remains weakly reported to the police and gendarmerie services. Over the period 2011-2018, 17% of victims of rape or attempted rape declared that they had lodged a complaint.”
Emergency numbers for people in distress
Suicide listen: 01 45 39 40 00
SOS Friendship: emergency numbers, by region, are available on the association’s website.
SOS Suicide Phoenix : 01 40 44 46 45 (from 1 p.m. to 11 p.m.) or 0825 120 364 (from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m.)