Starfish . . . stranded on the shores of the world

Strolling along the edge of the sea, a man catches sight of a young girl who appears to be engaged in some kind of an artistic dance. She stoops down, then slowly straightens to her full height, and casts her arm outward in a graceful arc.

Drawing closer, however, he sees that the beach around her is littered with little starfish and that she is throwing them gently one by one back into the sea.

He laughs light-heartedly: “There are starfish stranded on the sands as far as the eye can see, for miles up the beach. What difference does it make to save just a few?”

Smiling, she bends down and tosses another starfish out over the water saying serenely,

“It makes a difference to that one.”

Unfortunately our world too is a long, wide shore of stranded children, abandoned, sexually abused, commercially exploited, humiliated, raped, tortured and even killed. Not only teenagers and young children, but even babies, new-born babies. Over 6.000 news stories in all media all over the world bear witness to this.

We who work for Innocence in danger, in many parts of the world, are similarly faced with a challenging quantity of cases of sexual abuse of children. And all too often, the ones we can save from a predator parent, or from being consigned to a social institute that may be also fraught with abuse, or that we can have restored to his or her protector parent – are indeed so very few, but each child saved matters, each one is important.

In the judicial processes, the one thing we find most crucial, and this has been confirmed to us by victim parents, lawyers, child psychiatrists and psychologists, and even by magistrates and state attorneys as well, the most important thing is to hear the word of the child, his own testimony, and to give him the credence he deserves. Psychologically, it has been demonstrated that an abused child does not lie about abuse, there are some kinds of abuse he would be incapable of ‘inventing.’ On the contrary he has a very difficult time persuading himself to reveal these intimacies, these heinous crimes he fears to be accused of himself. Such a child is not in the position to lie. He would either tell the truth or remain locked in silence. And if, after struggling with himself to tell the truth publicly, he is not believed, he feels twice violated, the first time when he or she was actually penetrated, and the second time when after revealing this, he is not believed. Aside from feeling impure and dirty, he is now a liar!

In this regard, some progress has been made in France. Some hospitals and medical centres are better equipped to handle cases of child sex abuse. Children are immediately received by a resident psychiatrist or psychologist. There are pleasant interview and playing rooms, constructed for privacy and for enhancing the ambience for a child to speak about these intimate horrors. There are also recording facilities whose data are also acceptable as judicial evidence, thus reducing the number of times the child has to repeat ugly details to new strangers, especially to police or to unknown persons in court. But while this is the ideal, the practice is yet to be implemented on a totally national scale.

Law now provides for the child to be accompanied in court by a child specialist, at no cost to the victim’s family. This too is a positive factor which encourages the child to speak and stand up for his rights even if this means going against authority figures like his own parents.

We are also gratified by the repeal of the Parliamentary repeal last December of the next to last paragraph of article L.4124-6 of the Public Health Code. This repeal thus reinforces the protection of the medical practitioners so that when they exercise their right and obligation to notify the judiciary of any physical, sexual or psychological violence they diagnose in the examination of children, they are no longer open to any kind of disciplinary sanction.

This is an important issue that Innocence in Danger together with many other child protection associations, has been fighting for the last several years.

Overall in the judiciary of France, there are notable, positive signs of progress, reinforcement of the law, broader recognition by magistrates of their roles and obligations, a keener sensitivity to a now more alert and informed public opinion, setting up of an observatory and a centralised database on child abuse.

We do regret, however, a lingering slowness in some juridical cases and a reticence to accept fully the word of the child and evaluate more objectively medical evidence submitted in court.

But the advances, while few, are substantial, and Innocence in Danger will continue the struggle to protect and save children, through legal processes, through informatics tools on the Internet, though our educational and informational campaigns, through the sensitisation process in seminars and conferences, through lobbying at the United Nations, the European Parliament, national assemblies and international and regional organisations.

For along the wide and long shores of this world, there are still many more stranded children.

Homayra Sellier, President

Innocence in danger