The Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Violence Against Children (Ciivise) details in its report a global public policy to protect children against child criminals and support adults who have been victims. The commission heard 30,000 testimonies from former victims. Here are some of its 82 recommendations:
Identifying child victims
– Identification by systematic questioning: professionals must allow the child to reveal the violence by inspiring him or her with confidence and by asking the question. Establish a “annual individual interview to assess the child’s well-being and screen for violence”.
– Integrate this identification into consultations of minors for an abortion and for any early pregnancy, or following a suicide attempt by a child or adolescent.
– Find out, in the event of death by suicide, whether the person was the victim of sexual violence in childhood.
– Integrate identification through systematic questioning into the initial and continuing training plans of all professionals.
– Professionals must be supported and assured that they will not be subject to disciplinary proceedings if they report their suspicions. Doctors have been prosecuted before the council of the order of doctors for “interference in family affairs”.
Judicial treatment
– add the cousin in the definition of incest.
– guarantee the safety of the protective parent in the event of parental incest.
– automatic suspension of the exercise of parental authority and visiting and accommodation rights of the parent prosecuted for rape or incestuous sexual assault against their child. Systematic withdrawal of parental authority in the event of conviction.
– Create a Child Safety Order (OSE) allowing the judge to “rule urgently on the modalities of exercise of parental authority in the event of probable parental incest”modeled on protection orders for battered women.
– Declare rape and sexual assault against children imprescriptible, as they are in Sweden, Norway, Belgium and Canada.
– Ensure that psychological, child psychiatry and psychiatric assessments are carried out by trained and specialized practitioners.
– Strengthen the resources of the Juvenile Office (OFMIN) of the judicial police, particularly against cyber-pedocrime.
Repair including care
– Guarantee a specialized psychotrauma care pathway for victims, supported by national solidarity. Effective, this treatment helps reduce the after-effects reported by victims (risky behavior, addictions, depression, etc.).
– Guarantee victims compensation that takes into account all the consequences on their lives.
– Free the victims of incest by ascendant from any obligation towards them (maintenance obligation, etc.)
– Prevent the aggressor by law from recognizing the child resulting from rape.
Prevention
– Strengthen the resources of specialized services for the socio-judicial monitoring of attackers.
– Strengthen the effectiveness of the sexual attackers file. Strengthen background checks when recruiting people who work with children, then at regular intervals
– Implement education sessions on sexual and emotional life at school
– Ensure the continuity of the Civic