ECPAT LUXEMBOURG

During the month of January, the #MeTooIncest movement collected tens of thousands of stories from victims who were sexually abused by a family member.

As an international organization working for the protection of children and the fight against sexual exploitation of children, Ecpat Luxembourgmakes it a point of honour to support any victim of sexual abuse. Incest on minors is an abusive practice that has irreversible and destructive repercussions for a child’s development.

If until recently, incest was still a taboo subject, tongues are beginning to loosen. No longer able to live with a secret as heavy as it is traumatic, the victims now find the courage to talk about their childhood. An initiative welcomed by our association, which encourages all victims of sexual abuse to speak out in order to raise awareness, but above all, to bring about social and political change in society.

Breaking the Omertà, the Law of Silence

It was first the revelation ofCamille Kouchner that sparked the #MeTooIncest movement, allowing the veil to be lifted on the impunity and invisibility of this problem, which is much more widespread than we imagine. Lawyer and daughter of political scientist Bernard Kouchner, Camille Kouchner talks about the incest that her twin brother suffered for many years. In her book La Familia Grande, she courageously speaks out by publicly exposing their father-in-law Olivier Duhamel, author of the sexual abuse and former president of the National Foundation of Political Science in France. Her book, published in January 2021 (more than 20 years after the facts), demonstrates that silence is a specific element in situations of incest and sexual violence.

It is very frequent that the victim never talks about it, preferring to carry the burden on her shoulders rather than denounce a member of her family, sometimes very appreciated by all. Added to this is the fear of not being believed by others and the fear of damaging the reputation of the executioner, especially when it is a “man of power”. The law of silence in the child, sometimes to protect the adult, sometimes to escape a reality too heavy to bear for his age, contains however many repressed emotions: confusion, anger, shame, physical and psychological pain… which plunge the child in a bad esteem of himself and in the sexual exploitation which we deal with directly.

Speak up!

• Speak out, to allow associations to help victims rebuild and begin their healing process. It is necessary that these reports be taken seriously in order to intervene in a timely manner and reduce the risk of exposure to any form of sexual abuse or exploitation.
• Speak out,to help victims claim their right to justice and conviction of the guilty.
• Speak out, so that society and the victims’ entourage no longer tolerate such behavior and drive it out, because it is when the silence is broken that the abusers will immediately be curbed. It is through the liberation of the word that we will be able to curb, or even stop, such acts.
• Parlez, comme Catherine Salvadori &Amethyste Kyle, qui ont survécu à l’inceste et témoignent ci-dessous.

Testimony of Catherine Salvadori, victim of maternal incest

Testimony of Amethyst Kyle, victim of incest by her uncle

To learn more about sexual consent in Luxembourg, click here.

Written by Robine Bonsenge – Communication Officer