Created to fight against incest, the Ciivise will be able to continue its work but with a reshuffled management. The government decided on Monday to maintain the independent Commission on incest and sexual violence against children, but to remove from it the one who co-chaired it until then, judge Edouard Durand, although acclaimed by the associations.
“After three years of work (…), it is essential to maintain the momentum created against sexual violence suffered by children,” commented Secretary of State for Children Charlotte Caubel.
A pediatrician and legal expert appointed vice-president
The Ciivise will now be chaired by Sébastien Boueilh, ex-rugby player and founder of the association “Colossus with Feet of Clay”, which fights against sexual violence in the sporting environment. “I am committed to ensuring continuity and entering an operational phase,” he indicated. He will lead this mission alongside a vice-president, pediatrician and legal expert Caroline Rey-Salmon.
The associations, however, pleaded in favor of maintaining the children’s judge Edouard Durand, appreciated in particular for his independence and his outspokenness. But its media aura and the repeated questioning of the dysfunctions of the judicial treatment of sexual violence were annoying, according to observers. When questioned, he said he regretted the government’s decision to end his mission.
Nearly 30,000 testimonies collected
Edouard Durand took the helm of the commission, alongside association manager Nathalie Mathieu, when it was created in March 2021. In the space of two years, the commission collected nearly 30,000 testimonies and submitted a report to the government. 82 recommendations to fight against this “mass crime” which affects, according to her, 160,000 children each year. The challenge remains “to fight against the invisibility of the victims’ words”, according to Judge Durand.
For the government, this report “marks the end of an essential first step, which has made it possible to lift the veil on the extent of sexual violence imposed on children, in particular incest”. It must “open the way to new concrete actions” to “protect children even more” and “better care” for victims of violence.
A new roadmap
The work of the Civil Society was to end on December 31. For a time, the executive kept the future of this commission unclear. He finally promised in mid-November to maintain it, with a new roadmap. Now, the Ciivise will also look into the care of minors victims of prostitution or online child crime, the care of perpetrators of sexual violence against minors and the training of professionals in contact with children “in the most protective gestures », Detailed the government.