I’m 22 years old. I was a victim of child exploitation in France from 2019 to 2021. I am from Central Africa.
“It was a forced trip”
After my mother’s death, my older cousin, who had already been living in France for years, asked me to join her. The condition for leaving my home country was that, once I arrived in France, I continued my studies. He told me that it would be a very beautiful country and that I would discover many things. That it would be so good, that I would really have a lot of fun, that I would be really happy.
But I didn’t want to come to France. I was forced to do it. It was a forced journey. He had prepared everything with the person who would send me on the trip and had all my administrative documents with him, including my passport. I only took my clothes.
Accumulation of tasks and unbearable living conditions
I arrived directly in the Paris region, at my cousin’s husband’s house. The person who gave me orders was more my cousin, because she was home 24 hours a day.
I did the same thing every day. I cooked. I did housework. The children’s hygiene in the morning, breakfast… There was also the newborn that I had to take care of too. Sometimes I bottle fed him. I accompanied the children to school. Sometimes I went shopping.
I didn’t eat enough. If I saw a yogurt in the fridge and wanted it, I couldn’t just take it. I didn’t really have a private life.
So, everything I did was in the living room. They all knew what I was doing, who I was talking to on the phone. They remained next to me listening. I slept in the living room. I slept until late at night. For that? Because the husband, when he came home, stayed out until x. I had to wait for him to finish zoning around 2am before leaving. I slept four hours…
I shouldn’t have talked to the neighbors. I shouldn’t talk to strangers on the street. I just had to go out, do what I had to do and come back. When the couple was not at home and I went out with the children, the ten-year-old, the eldest, had the task of listening to my every action. It was his mother’s order.
I always had to be there. If I hadn’t been there, he would have yelled at me and yelled and everything, telling me it was because of him that I was there.
Blackmail and guilt
I couldn’t say I was tired. I always had to prove that I was motivated. He also blackmailed me by saying, “You are illegal in this territory, so the police shouldn’t even see you.”
And when he scolded me, I felt guilty. I said to myself, “No, I shouldn’t have done that. After all, she is the one who brought me here, it is thanks to her that I am here.” When I lived with my cousin, I never got paid. I never went to school. I was never even registered anywhere. Every time I asked, “When will I go to school?” He said, “No, don’t worry.”
“I had packed my bags as if I knew I was leaving permanently”
I was hospitalized many times when I lived with my cousin. I have a chronic pathology. At any time I can have seizures. Emotions matter a lot in this pathology. During my stay with my cousin I wasn’t well, I was hospitalized many times. I wasn’t sleeping enough, I was quite stressed, I was unhappy.
One night I had an attack. That’s when he realized I was really unwell and decided to call SAMU. I had packed my bags as if I knew I was leaving for good. I had taken my administrative documents, my passport.
You should know that before my last hospitalization there, I had had an attack a week earlier. So the nurse was trying to find out why, after a week of hospitalization, when I was discharged, I wasn’t feeling well? I had to reply: “Here I am, I’m not well”.
He returns later with a whole group of doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists. This is where I had to explain again, tell my story again from A to Z. And this is how CCEM (a non-profit association created in 1994 by a group of lawyers and journalists) was introduced to me.
I told him: “If I leave, what are the conditions? Will he know?” He said, “No, no!” I spent ten days in the hospital, while the CCEM arranged everything. I was hosted by the CCEM. I spent three days in the emergency apartment. And from there I left for a student hostel Now.
Starting to live again
Frankly, if it weren’t for CCEM, I don’t know where I would be. They helped me get the documents. I have a residence permit. I see a psychologist. With CCEM they helped me enroll in school. So it’s been a year since I got my baccalaureate and today I’m a nursing student and it’s in a very famous school in Paris.
I don’t want to hear about this family anymore. I don’t want anything anymore because psychologically I have suffered from it. Looking back, I see that I did very well from there and today I am happy. I no longer want to be associated with this family. In the end I didn’t file a complaint because I tell myself that there are children at stake. I don’t even want to talk about her as my cousin anymore.
He is a foreign person. I don’t have his number anymore. I have nothing left.
*The name has been changed
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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.