On the occasion of International Children’s Rights Day, Monday November 20, 2023, the government unveiled his new fight plan against violence against children for the period 2023-2027. With her 22 measures, Élisabeth Borne wanted to raise awareness on the one hand and ensure better monitoring on the other hand, particularly for protected children. With an awareness component first, the government announced the training of more than two million professionals in contact with children, new sex education programs in schools from the next school year and communication campaigns in order to raise awareness among the French. Another strong measure, a aid of 1,500 euros paid automatically and without any formalities to the majority of young people from the Childhood Social Assistance (ASE) system. In the protection aspect, the government has confirmed better care for child victims of violence with the continued deployment of dedicated care units or the doubling of the envelope intended for protected children with disabilities.
Significant resources put in place
To do this, Matignon has decided to pull out all the stops. A budget of 15 million euros will, for example, be allocated to education in order to ensure better monitoring of studies and guidance on career guidance. According to France info, numerous recruitments of agents in support and emergency systems are also planned in the coming years. The network dismantling unit will thus have more than 80 police officers within two years, compared to around thirty today. After the control plans of 2017 and 2020, and faced with the recent figures revealed, Élisabeth Borne and her team wanted to act firmly to stem the phenomenon. According to a report by the Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Violence Against Children (Ciivise), published on November 17, 2023, approximately 160,000 children are victims of sexual violence each year, i.e. a child every three minutes. However, according to Ciivise, the average age for speaking out about this type of violence is around 44 years old, as evidenced by the recent cascade of revelations from celebrities who were victims of sexual violence in their youth, such as ‘Emmanuelle Béart for example. On September 24, 2023, on the occasion of the release of her documentary on incest, she took the opportunity to speak about the rapes she suffered during her adolescence.