The Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Abuse of Children submitted its report to the government on Monday. Among its members is Eva Thomas, an 81-year-old from Isère, who was the first woman to speak openly about incest in 1986.
This is the fight of his life. Help victims of incest, fight against sexual violence perpetrated against children. Eva Thomas said everything, publicly, in 1986 in Les Dossiers de l’screen: her rape by her father, one night, when she was 15 years old. Then the silence, the denial. The years of living with this injury. She testified in two books, The rape of silence et The blood of words.
La Ciivise has just released a 756-page report, including 30,000 testimonies collected over three years. Was it important to listen to all these victims?
Eva Thomas: It was something completely essential that this speech be in a specific place to be listened to by representatives of the State. It was both free and above all protected speech. Because speaking out also risks being sued for defamation, getting into a lot of trouble, etc. In every city, there are people, especially older people, who have said: ‘I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life. I waited to be listened to by state authorities. It’s a socialized word, we have to get to that. Until now, we were left in the secret, in the therapies, whereas for me, when I went on television to say: ‘my father raped me, it’s not possible to continue’, it’s What made things happen was this public speech which is necessary for society to move.
Is there still a denial of incest, in your opinion, in our society?
In 1987, I wrote a text on the sacrificial logic of incest. That is to say that the victims were dealing with three sacrificers: the rapist who plunders the future, who kills the child psychologically. Then, the psychoanalyst with the lie of the Freudian theory of Oedipal love. And the third, the legislator who had established the prescription so that we would never talk about it.
We come from that culture. The denial was fractured because many women and men spoke out, wrote books and little by little, this fracture increased until the installation of the Civil Society. The President of the Republic still said: ‘we believe you, you will never be alone again’. This word was extremely important for all the victims who felt, for once, recognized by society.
La Ciivise has estimated the cost of denying sexual violence at 9.7 billion euros per year. In your opinion, has the extent of this phenomenon been minimized until now?
We took stock of what this problem was at the societal level with staggering figures since there are more than 5 million people who have experienced sexual violence in their family or committed by adults. [3,9 millions de femmes et 1,5 million d’hommes, NDLR] and so that was really not known. Now we have knowledge, not only of the figures, but also of the catastrophic effects on the entire lives of the victims. The people who testified all told the same story: their lives were devastated. There are a lot of people who were abused as children and who attempt suicide or who have committed suicide. Some people said that they spoke ‘in the name of incest suicides’ and I knew friends at the association who worked with us and who ended up hanging themselves. It’s a matter of life and death, incest.
What should we do to overcome this denial?
Before, our words were either minimized, denied, despised, or interpreted but not heard in the context of reality. And that’s what needs to change. You have to listen to the children, they are telling the truth. We’re not going to have fun saying things like that. No child has any interest in saying that his father raped him when it is not true, because he loses his designated protector, he loses his family, he loses all his protection. This is also the key to silence because we have the impression that if we speak, we will explode the family. It’s totally terrifying to have to say a word like that.
You intervened in the training of the gendarmes who collect the testimony of children. Do you feel better listening?
I was struck by their questions, their interest, their attentiveness. I talked with them about what it does to them, emotionally, to listen to these stories, because it’s very, very hard. And a young gendarme told me that he had heard a little girl of 8 years old. When he was finished, he told her: ‘Now you have to go back to your educator’. But the little girl was clinging to her seat, she didn’t want to move. And all of a sudden, she threw herself into the gendarme’s arms saying: ‘sir, sir, protect me!’ The police, when they experience things like that, they also have trouble sleeping. I find it exciting to participate in these training courses because we are truly human.
“My daughter revealed to me that she had suffered sexual abuse (…) which also affected my son.”
Sexual violence committed by minors against other minors is largely underestimated.
“Among minors too”, a doc to watch on our platform 👉 pic.twitter.com/IBPICiRIxc— France tv (@FranceTV) November 16, 2023
160,000 children are victims of sexual violence each year in our country. La Ciivise has drawn up 82 recommendations, in particular to identify them systematically. Should the question be asked of each student?
Yes, these are recommendations that are made and I am also thinking of something else. As this violence is a question of violated human rights – I have repeated this for 35 years – it is the absolute injustice that we are doing to children and therefore we must warn the children. I ask that in all classes in France, from kindergarten to final year, there be at least one poster on children’s rights adapted to their age. Because they are warned of their rights like this, they will understand that things are not fair. It must be said that we do not have the right to touch intimate places, very clear things but placing ourselves at the level of the law. We take it from the side of sexuality, but it’s not sexuality, it’s violence. It’s a story of adult domination over children, of a dominant person attacking someone vulnerable.
The report has now been submitted but the training and legislative work remains to be done. Are you hopeful?
Me, I’m always optimistic, I always think that things will work out. I look back, I can see that a lot of things have changed. I started in 1985, there are other associations which work in the same way to listen to the words of victims, to help them, to support them and that is essential. Every time a book came out on the subject, I read it and I was happy. I told myself that this person was saved because she had come to terms with her story socially. And she contributed to all this collective speaking out. We are a big chain of people who fought, that’s what’s wonderful too.
Today, the facts are prescribed 30 years after the victim reaches the age of majority. Should this deadline be extended?
We demand imprescriptibility. Thirty years, I think that is not enough because, because of traumatic memory, we immediately forget what happened. We know that the brain is very adapted so that we can survive this absolute terror.
Is going to court essential in your eyes?
Yes. I needed to change my first name. Returning from the Saint-Brieuc trial [en 1989, Claudine Joncour a été condamnée en diffamation après avoir dénoncé le viol perpétré par son père à la télévision, NDLR], while I never completely collapsed, I physically collapsed. I could no longer stand up, I had dizziness, an absolutely incredible drop in blood pressure and I remained in this state for several months, unable to work, unable to think, unable to write.
I said to myself: ‘it’s injustice that struck me, so I’m going to make a request to the courts’. I asked for a change of name because my father had raped me and it was accepted. From the moment I got my new identity papers, it was completely incredible, I regained my physical health, my mental health. I started writing my second book, The blood of wordsto explain that I had experienced the symbolic effectiveness of the law positively.
I had asked for a new identity to have my own, new identity, protected by the law, because this story of being protected by the law is what we are missing. That’s why we have to go to the courthouse and why I said it was a question of human rights, first of all. It’s not being treated like that that makes people sick. Me, after having my new identity papers, I never somatized again. I no longer had nightmares. And so, I need to bear witness to that.
Hence the importance of filing a complaint…
Yes and even, for example, now, people who have been attacked, even if there is a statute of limitations, they are received in the gendarmerie and by the police. This is the right place to go and submit your story. And many say that when they leave the gendarmerie or the police station, they become straight again, whole, etc. It’s obvious, so do it!
To testify or benefit from support, Ciivise has set up a helpline: 0 805 802 804. Available Monday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Anonymous and free call.
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