A child in pain.
-
Pixabay
In
La Familia grande,
which appears Thursday, Camille Kouchner denounces the incest that political scientist Olivier Duhamel allegedly committed in the 1990s.
Since 1986, various works have contributed to a collective awareness of the extent of this phenomenon.
But if the veil is gradually lifting on cases of incest, there is still a long way to go to completely free the words of victims and their loved ones.
And to improve the detection of cases by doctors.
There will be a before and an after the Duhamel affair.
In her book
La Familia grande,
which appears Thursday, jurist Camille Kouchner accuses her stepfather, political scientist Olivier Duhamel, of having sexually assaulted his twin brother when he was 14 years old.
The Paris prosecutor announced Tuesday the opening of an investigation for "rape and sexual assault by a person in authority".
A revelation that sounds like an explosion, analyzes Isabelle Aubry *, president and founder of the association Face à inceste: “The fact that this affair affects a public figure gives it a particular resonance.
Usually, cases of incest are treated like news items, there it becomes a fact of society ”.
This affair is also symptomatic of a gradual liberation of speech on the subject.
“This shift was initiated with the testimony in 1986 of a rehabilitator, Eva Thomas, who told in a book and in the program
The files of the screen
the rapes she had suffered by her father.
His revelations made a lot of noise at the time, ”recalls historian Anne-Claude Ambroise-Rendu, who specializes in the history of rape and child crime.
In the 1990s, other books were published by victims of incest, without making as much noise, but contributing to the collective awareness of the extent of the phenomenon.
Then in 2004, it was the turn of actress Catherine Allégret to recount, in
Un monde upside down,
the touching she suffered as a child and the attempted rape, adult, of her stepfather, Yves Montand. .
“But Catherine Allégret had been criticized for having accused a dead man.
The company was not ready to hear it, especially since Yves Montand was a very popular media figure, ”emphasizes Isabelle Aubry.
"The liberated word of a victim frees others"
In 2015, Christine Angot also revealed the rapes committed by her father, in
Un amour impossible.
But it is with the #
MeToo
movement
,
in 2017, that the subject comes back more strongly in the public debate.
“The voice of women victims of sexual assault has been released and this movement has gradually expanded.
The sexual abuse experienced by children was discussed, with the hashtag #Iwas, which in 2020 enabled people who were victims of sexual violence in their childhood to testify on Twitter.
We are in a continuum ”, observes psychiatrist Muriel Salmona, also president of the association of traumatic memory and victimology.
The Matzneff affair, highlighted by the work
Le consent,
by Vanessa Springora, also underlined the omerta that reigned in France on child crime in the artistic community.
And not only.
Testimonies with an immediate snowball effect, according to Anne-Claude Ambroise-Rendu: “The liberated word of a victim frees others.
They no longer feel guilty, can get out of the domination exercised by their aggressor, ”she believes.
Even if the veil is gradually lifting, too many victims still suffer from the taboo surrounding this crime.
However, according to an Ipsos study by the association Facing incest revealed in November, one in ten French people have been the victim of incest.
Which makes it a massive phenomenon.
When a child experiences such a tragedy, he sometimes finds himself in a parallel reality, describes Muriel Salmona: “He is emotionally anesthetized.
This traumatic anesthesia is his only way to survive ”.
He is also under pressure from his attacker: “It is the Gordian knot of incest.
The abuser tells the victim not to talk about it and that everyone does it.
And the victim feels that they have more to lose than to gain by speaking out.
That his revelations would explode the family unit, a cell that is woven with multiple affects ”, underlines Anne-Claude Ambroise-Rendu.
"The victim is often rejected in favor of the aggressor"
Others still try to communicate with their loved ones about what happened to them: “Children speak in their own words about what they have suffered.
Or their behavior suddenly changes: they complain of pain, wet the bed, suffer from sleep disorders.
But in 8 out of 10 cases, when a child speaks, he is told to shut up and to continue behaving as if nothing had happened with his attacker, ”informs Isabelle Aubry.
And mothers, when they are aware, sometimes prefer to wall in a protective denial: "Either to preserve their couple, because if they talk to their spouse, they will no longer be able to come to terms with him.
Or because the reality is too unbearable, ”emphasizes Isabelle Aubry.
Very often, the precise denunciation of the facts arrives late, when the victim becomes an adult: “It occurs about sixteen years after the rape, when the victim is no longer under the influence of her rapist.
It is often on the occasion of a marriage, the birth of a child or when his child reaches the age that the victim was at the time of the facts, that the need to speak is felt ”, notes Isabelle Aubry .
Revelations that cause family upheaval: "The victim is often rejected in favor of the aggressor, who has more power in the family," observes Isabelle Aubry.
"Only 2% of reports come from doctors"
So that cases of incest are no longer passed over in silence, they should first be better detected upstream by professionals.
"Only 2% of reports come from doctors," recognizes the cabinet of Adrien Taquet, Secretary of State for Child Protection.
"They are afraid of reprisals, of losing part of their clientele," explains Isabelle Aubry.
"Doctors are not trained and do not know how to detect risky behavior or symptoms that may suggest that a child is the victim of sexual violence," adds Muriel Salmona.
The independent commission on incest, chaired by Elisabeth Guigou, relies on the development of reference pediatric teams, responsible for supporting doctors on this subject.
Those close to the victim should also be able to more easily report cases of incest.
"If a child claims to have suffered sexual violence or if you witness a prohibited act, you must report to the police by calling 17. If, on the other hand, you are not at all sure of the incest , but that we have doubts, we must call 119. A platform of the Ministry of the Interior also allows you to chat with a police officer to report sexual violence to him, ”recalls Muriel Salmona.
The independent commission on incest should also "set up a platform to collect the words of victims during the first quarter of 2021", explains the entourage of Elisabeth Guigou.
One thing is certain: the hype surrounding the Duhamel affair risks loosing tongues.
* Isabelle Aubry is the author of
Incest: 36 unavoidable questions,
Dunod, 2017.
Society
Duhamel case: Why is the prosecution opening an investigation thirty years after the facts denounced?
Justice
Accused of incest, political scientist Olivier Duhamel resigns from his post
Elisabeth Guigou's reaction
Elisabeth Guigou, president of the brand new commission on incest, is mentioned among the relatives of Olivier Duhamel, accused of incest by his stepdaughter, Camille Kouchner.
Questioned by
20 Minutes,
her entourage declares that she "discovered the facts through the press" and that she had "no more contact with the Duhamel family".
Child
Books
Sexual violence
Society
Incest