Sunday 16 January 2022
Snapchat led to the perpetrators
Kidnapped 14-year-old rescued in Marseille
A 14-year-old girl runs away from home and gets caught by two men. For days they hold the girl captive and rape her. She herself cannot tell where she is. The police track down their tormentors via an app.
With the help of the Snapchat app, police officers in the southern French city of Marseille rescued a young woman who was being held captive. The emergency services used the GPS location in the app, said a police spokesman on Sunday evening. The teenager had injuries. French media reported that the girl had been raped several times.
Two men who were in the apartment with the 14-year-old were taken into police custody. The judiciary initiated investigations against the 27-year-old and the 64-year-old, as the broadcaster France 3 wrote with reference to the Marseille public prosecutor. According to the reports, the girl from the Ardèche department had run away from home. At around 5 a.m. on Friday morning, the imprisoned 14-year-old then contacted her family via Instagram, who alerted the police. The girl herself did not know where she was. As the broadcaster BFMTV reported, the teenager is now back with her family.
According to the broadcaster France Bleu, the two arrested men denied having held the girl. They also stated that the sexual contact was consensual and that they did not know the girl’s age. In France, consent to sexual practices cannot be given under the age of 15. Sexual acts by adults on children under this age threshold are punishable by law.