The ordeal lasted thirteen years, from 1976 to 1988, for this child placed by the services of child welfare (ASE) of Tarn-et-Garonne among Jehovah’s Witnesses. From the age of 5 to her majority, she suffered numerous rapes and sexual abuse committed by the father of the family, and partly recognized since by the author, without any alert going up, without anyone ask any questions. It is for this negligence that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned Thursday France this Thursday.
In her decision, the Court considers that the French authorities “did not implement the preventive measures for detecting the risks of ill-treatment provided for by the texts”. And it therefore condemns France to pay 55,000 euros to the victim in compensation for “moral damage”, a particularly high sum in view of the case law of the ECHR.
The Court reveals in particular that “only six visits were made” to the family over the entire period, and that no document attests to any follow-up with the schools attended by the child. “There was a clear deficiency in the regular monitoring as provided for by the legal provisions then in force”, she points out.
In France, the victim’s appeal had been rejected
The European judges also deplore that the officials of the ASE did not “implement the necessary measures” to enforce the “religious neutrality clause” that the host family had to observe: this involved the child to his religious activities, even though the child’s family of origin was of the Muslim faith. The family had also expressed the wish that the teenager would not be transfused after a serious accident which occurred when she was 17 years old. Informed of this situation, the ASE took no action at the time.
Finally, the ECHR rules against the French administrative courts, which, by rejecting the action for compensation brought by the child who has become an adult, showed “excessive formalism”.