As much as we educate children about consent and respect for their bodies, and tell them that they can talk about anything, without shame or taboo, with a trusted adult, it is not always easy for them to approach the violence they could suffer, at home. or elsewhere.
It is to help them find the help they need that Laurent Boyet founded Les Papillons. Since 2022, this association has installed “Butterfly Mailboxes” in schools and sports clubs “Children who are victims of every form of abuse can, at their own pace, insert a note, a drawing, like a buoy thrown into the sea”.
And it was one of these buoys that helped save Lily. Two years ago, this fifth grader slipped a note into one of the butterfly mailboxes in which she explained, with her daughter’s vocabulary, the repeated rapes to which her grandfather had subjected her for several years. “He puts his bottom in my bottom. I try to escape but I can’t.”she wrote.
“It was this inbox that changed everything for her”explains Émilie, Lily’s mother, to BFMTV. “At first he blamed himself a lot. She was very brave. I hope other children have the courage she had. »
Lily’s grandfather will appear on September 20 and 23 in the Ain Criminal Court for rape and sexual assault on Lily and two of her cousins.
An essential device for collecting children’s words
For Laurent Boyet, founder and president of Papillons, the expansion of the mailbox system is a necessity to better identify and address sexual violence against minors, while the toll-free number 119 is often not known to young victims, most of whom under ten years old. “Unfortunately there is an urgent need to give children another voice to free their speech. »
An opinion shared by Lily’s mother. “All schools, all sports facilities should be equipped with these mailboxes. He saved my daughter, we must not forget that. If it wasn’t for this mailbox, I don’t know where we would be. »
Since the Papillons letterboxes were installed five years ago, 30,000 children’s words have been recorded. According to the Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Violence against Children (CIIVISE), 160,000 children are victims of sexual violence every year.
Read also: Édouard Durand: “CIIVISE responds to a vital need, for the victims and for society”
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Source: Madmoizelle
Mary Crossley is an author at “The Fashion Vibes”. She is a seasoned journalist who is dedicated to delivering the latest news to her readers. With a keen sense of what’s important, Mary covers a wide range of topics, from politics to lifestyle and everything in between.
