"Victims of incest must be able to appeal", proposes the Ciivise

• A year after its installation, the Ciivise has collected more than 11,000 testimonies from victims of incest or sexual violence in childhood.

• For its co-president Edouard Durand, this figure alone legitimizes the existence of the commission and testifies to the need for the victims to tell what they have experienced and the weight of the silence imposed by society.

• Among the recommendations made public on Thursday, the Ciivise proposes the automatic withdrawal of parental authority when an adult is found guilty of incest or sexual violence against one of his children.

A year ago, the magistrate received us in his office, at the Bobigny tribunal de grande instance.

Edouard Durand, juvenile judge for almost twenty years, had just taken the head of a brand new commission: the Ciivise.

This body, born in the wake of that devoted to rapes committed in the Church, was to respond to the shock wave caused by the publication of Camille Kouchner's book on incest,

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Since then, Edouard Durand and his teams have criss-crossed France to listen to the victims.

A low noise revolution which has made it possible to collect more than 11,000 testimonies and which has already given rise to 25 reports to the judicial and administrative authorities.

Scheduled to last two years, the Ciivise publishes this Thursday a first report and formulates 20 proposals to improve the protection of these thousands of child victims of incest, rape or sexual assault in France.

On the occasion of his "mid-term", Edouard Durand draws up an initial assessment in an interview with

One year after the installation of the Ciivise, what assessment do you draw?

Some of our work has already come to fruition.

Others are still in progress, such as the evaluation mission entrusted to the inspections of the Ministries of Justice, Interior and Social Affairs on the classifications without follow-up of criminal complaints.

La Ciivise has found its vocation in the call for testimonies and in the way adults who have been victims of sexual violence in childhood have turned to us in a massive way to entrust us with their word.

At the time of the launch of this call for testimonies, some voices were nevertheless critical, believing that the victims had already been talking for years and that it was time to move on to concrete actions...

Today, we have received more than 11,000 testimonials.

This number is increasing every day.

It is not because people, more or less famous, had already spoken that this space is not useful, necessary or legitimate.

Each person who shares their story with us is part of a collective movement.

The Ciivise has also become a gathering space where victims meet and where they meet society.

So yes, of course, this is nothing new.

Yes, we knew that incest existed.

But what is changing is that today, through a public body, society is organizing to tell the victims: we believe you and we respect your word so much that we are going to build a public protection policy that will rely on your word.

Among your 20 proposals, almost half concern the judicial treatment of sexual violence against minors.

Is justice the “weak link” in the fight against incest?

Incest and sexual violence against children are first and foremost a very serious violation of criminal and civil law.

They must therefore be taken into account for what they are, that is to say a crime or an offence.

The question of improving the judicial handling of these cases may arise, but that does not mean that the judicial institution is the “weak link” in the chain of protection.

In reality, our hearings and our trips to the field have shown us that for each child victim, this "weak link" can certainly be a magistrate, a policeman or a gendarme, but it can also be a teacher or from a doctor.

Some of your recommendations, however, raise questions about the means granted to the justice system to deal with these cases.

You propose, for example, to systematize the viewing, by the magistrates, of the hearings of child victims.

How to explain that this is not the case today?

The police and the gendarmes have the obligation to record the hearing of the child victim but the judges do not have the obligation to watch them.

We others, magistrates – I am one – we have the culture of the “file”.

Our relationship to reality is made by the impregnation of the elements of this file.

However, everyone will understand that when a child victim of rape or sexual assault is interviewed by a trained police officer or gendarme, certain information is transmitted non-verbally and cannot be transcribed in writing.

But you are right, there is an underlying question of the means granted to Justice.

Because viewing a hearing of two or three hours well it takes two or three hours for a magistrate.

However, be careful, the protection of minors,

it's not just a matter of budget or staffing.

This is why we make realistic, achievable and ambitious recommendations.

Withdrawing parental authority from a parent found guilty by a court of having raped his child, for example, costs the State nothing and improves the protection of children.

What legislative changes seem to you today the most urgent to fight more effectively against incest?

I see three.

The first is the obligation of reporting by doctors and their disciplinary protection.

There have already been debates on the subject, the question is legitimate but the answer that we propose is just as much.

Liberal doctors have a fundamental mission and considerable responsibilities.

They therefore need clear rules, like any other profession.

We propose the establishment of a reporting obligation, a support cell and disciplinary protection.

The second reform is the recognition of the place of victims in the criminal trial.

In the name of what can we justify that a victim of rape or sexual assault in her childhood cannot challenge the judgment of the criminal court or the judgment of the court of assizes which declares her attacker not guilty?

When an attacker is found not guilty, the victim can only appeal for damages.

What is the logic?

The accused may appeal against a decision which concerns him.

The public prosecutor can appeal against the decision on public action.

The victim who is a civil party must therefore also be able to appeal a decision which primarily concerns him!

Finally, the last point that seems urgent to me is the question of parental authority.

When the prosecutor considers that there are enough elements to initiate a trial, a suspension of parental authority and visitation rights of the parent in question is required.

And if this parent is convicted, parental authority must be systematically withdrawn.

It's common sense, of course.

Rape, sexual assault on one's child, is a very serious transgression of parental authority.

No principle opposes such evidence.

Two weeks before the first round of the presidential election, does the issue of the fight against sexual violence against children seem to you to be sufficiently taken into account by the declared candidates?

One of the objectives of the publication of these intermediate conclusions in such an important period of public debate as a presidential election, is precisely to ensure that the protection of children is better taken into account.

By all citizens, those who are candidates as well as those who vote.

We hope to ensure that the prevention of sexual violence therefore becomes an explicit concern in the current debate.

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• Incest

• Rape

• Sexual violence

• Child protection

• Minor

• Society

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