The former Tunisian tennis player, Salima Safar, revealed that she was harassed and raped when she was 12 years old, by her French coach, Regis de Camaret, in a training center in France.
Safar, who was ranked among the 100 best professional tennis players in the world, spoke to the newspaper “L’EquipeThe French woman reported being harassed and raped by her coach in the city of Biarritz, southwestern France.
Salima Safar decided to break her silence at the age of 46, and revealed that she had been sexually assaulted for 3 years when she joined the training center, according to the platform.Digital Tunisia“.
Shocking details
The former tennis player said, “When I was 12 and a half years old, I was raped by my coach, but no one was aware of what happened, and it took me a lot to free myself from the fear that I lived,” adding, “I was under a huge shock.”
On the way back from Bordeaux airport after coming from Tunisia, “it was one o’clock in the afternoon, he stopped by the road and started touching me,” says Safar.
“At that moment, I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t understand anything at all,” she added.
And Safar continued, “I was paralyzed, and I could not move, I think it was a way to know whether I would react or not, I was under shock, as if you connect a computer to 220 volts at 550 power, you become paralyzed.”
And Safar added, “We followed our path and arrived at his house late. His daughter was in the room. She slept on the sofa bed downstairs. After an hour or two, she woke up while he was touching me, then it turned from touch to rape, quickly.”
The former Tunisian tennis player did not tell anyone for years, went to England and finally “decided not to have a coach,” according to Agence France-Presse.
Regarding the impact of these violations on her personal life and her sports career, she said, “I always wondered why I didn’t have the strength to say no… I was a coward and it was very cruel.”
Safar, whose career spanned between 1993 and 2008, spoke for the first time about the trauma she was subjected to to her psychiatrist, and recounted how “I lay on the couch and cried for 48 hours.
And she reached the club of the best hundred players in 2001, but “every time I was close to a big victory, I was paralyzed,” according to what was reported by “Agence France Presse” about the former Tunisian player.
Since 2014, Regis de Camaret has been in prison on charges of aggravated rape of two underage students.
Twenty-six former players, including former French second seed Isabelle Domongo, testified against him on charges of sexual assault and rape.
And about that, she said, “It took me 25 years to admit that to myself, and then 35 years to say it publicly. Hats off to Isabelle Domongo and all the ladies who have spoken. I understand not speaking up, and we have to do it when we feel it.”
At the time of the de Camaret trials, Safar asserted that she “fell into a real depression”.
She added, “My parents and relatives said to me: Fortunately, you are strong, and you will not allow this to happen. Do not imagine the harm every time I heard that, the shame I was feeling. This indirectly confirmed to me the extent of my cowardice and weakness. I lived this throughout the trial, hell.” I had dark thoughts.”
2023-08-30 05:16:53
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