The body of a 4-year-old girl was discovered Sunday morning at the departmental children’s home in Sucy-en-Brie (Val-de-Marne), according to the Créteil public prosecutor’s office, which confirms news from the newspaper The Parisian.
“An investigation has been opened to determine the cause of death. For the rest we will see in what framework we evolve. There is currently no hypothesis, nothing suspicious as it stands. We are trying to find out what is the cause of death, there may be a congenital malformation, a false path…” indicates the prosecution.
Last contact in the night, while she was coughing
It was an educator from the home who found the little girl dead in her bed around 9 a.m., indicates The Parisianwhich specifies that “the last contact with the child was at 3 a.m., when staff brought her a glass of water while she was coughing.”
Some 377,000 children are subject to a protection measure under child welfare, whose services have, since the major decentralization laws of 1982 and 1983, come under the authority and responsibility of the departments. Associations and professionals in this sector regularly sound the alarm, pointing out a lack of resources and staff, and believing that they are no longer able to ensure the care or monitoring of minors in danger.
ASE malfunctions
Socialist deputies have launched a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the “dysfunctions” of child welfare (ASE), whose rapporteur is Isabelle Santiago, MP for Val-de-Marne. The debate on the accommodation of young people on child welfare was relaunched at the end of January after the death of Lily, a 15-year-old girl found hanged in a hotel in Puy-de-Dôme. In October, an 11-year-old girl, placed in the ASE, was also found hanged in her room, in an association home in Oise.