In France, a new "comprehensive law" aims to strengthen preventative measures, the judicial process and support for child victims of sexual violence. Yet advocacy groups, lawyers, and healthcare professionals point out that the legislation has numerous shortcomings. We take a closer look in this edition of France in Focus. _Warning: viewers may find parts of this report disturbing._ In France, one child is reportedly raped or sexually assaulted every three minutes.
CIIVISE, the independent commission on incest and sexual violence involving minors, estimates that 160,000 children are victims of these crimes every year. The murder and rape of 11-year-old Lyhanna in May shocked the country and accelerated the creation of a "comprehensive law". Its aim is to intervene at every level, from preventative measures to the judicial response, including the protection and support of victims.
Mié Kohiyama was five years old when she was raped by her cousin. She says she lived with traumatic amnesia for 32 years before her memories of the incident returned. Now a co-founder of the Be Brave France charity, she advocates for the elimination of statutes of limitations.
She explained to the National Assembly in April:"When these victims face a wall of refusal from the justice system, it is an absolutely devastating form of violence. You have to be incredibly strong not to give up and kill yourself." Her story illustrates one of the challenges of childhood sexual abuse: it can take some victims decades to speak out and file a complaint. Since 2018 in France, the statute of limitations for rapes committed against minors has been 30 years from the age of majority, meaning up to age 48.
But for victims who were raped before 2018, the law is different. In the rest of the European Union, half of its member states have abolished statutes of limitations for the most serious sexual crimes. Carine Durrieu-Diebolt is a lawyer who specialises in defending these victims; she believes the law is too complex.
"In France now, a victim who was raped as a minor has 30 years from the time they reach adulthood to take legal action. But that's not the case for every victim, because the law changes and it doesn't apply in the same way to everyone.So abolishing the statute of limitations would simplify the law and give everyone the same legal framework." The issue is all the more sensitive because DNA evidence diminishes and becomes unusable over time. But Durrieu-Diebolt believes investigators should devote more resources to the preliminary investigation: "Very often, in cases of sexual assault, not everything is done that could be.
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