Chloe’s infanticide: ‘Children are direct victims of domestic violence’

In the night between Thursday 11 and Friday 12 May, 5-year-old Chloe was killed by her father, in a pre-existing context of domestic violence, which resulted, the day before, in an expulsion order issued against her. The Collectif Enfantiste, which fights against violence against children, denounced the silence surrounding the case in a series of tweets: “ Children are direct victims, objects of torture in domestic violence [et] the forgotten adults in the fight against domestic violence “. Meeting with Claire Bourdille, president of the collective.

Interview with Claire Bourdille, President of the Children’s Collective

To miss. Why is it important to place Chloe’s murder in the context of domestic violence?

Clare Bourdille. According to the latest data from the High Council for Equality, 400,000 children are victims of direct domestic violence. However, in our courts, the notion of a child victim of domestic violence is misunderstood. There is a clear distinction between domestic violence and child abuse. And in fact, even today we think that a parent who commits domestic violence can be a good parent, as if the two things were not connected.

Chloe’s infanticide is the very example of what is called vicarious violence. This little-known concept corresponds to a form of domestic violence which is however very widespread in families with children, where the latter are used as an object of blackmail, torture, pressure to destroy the victim parent. In some separations the violence is exercised through the children. In 2021, 14 children died in this context of domestic violence.

What does Chloe’s infanticide reveal about the justice system?

We don’t have all the elements yet, but from what we know, there would have been several complaints against the father. Therefore, it is incomprehensible that Chloe’s mother and daughter weren’t better protected. How to explain that her mother came looking for her alone from her father, despite the expulsion provision issued the day before her, and the exclusive parental authority that she had just been entrusted to her? This once again reveals the legal vacuum surrounding how we connect domestic violence and violence against children.

In this type of case the investigations are often lengthy, the jurisdictions do not communicate with each other… We also see this in cases of femicide: even if there is a femicide protocol for orphans, often the children are left at home • abandonment, without psychotraumatological follow-up. It also happens that parental authority is left to the aggressor, because we strive to maintain a distinction between domestic violence and violence against children…

And then, in indirect violence, we also witness a manipulation of justice to continue to destroy the parent victim, through arguments such as that of parental alienation syndrome… Then there is a real inversion of guilt on the mother that the fathers they have sometimes even been condemned. We do not understand that by condemning the mother we are not protecting the children. To protect the children is to protect the mother. Everything is connected.

You deplore the media silence on the matter…

Indeed. Chloé’s infanticide highlights the flaws in our society in terms of understanding domestic violence and protecting victims and their children. The silence surrounding the case is chilling: is it because it is intra-family violence, more banal? For children we say that the danger comes from outside, that we shouldn’t talk to strangers, we can’t imagine that they can stay at home… We have to assume our responsibilities: every murdered child is a failure of society. There is a real invisibility of infanticide.

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