France's indifference to child abuse after Pelicot

[RedToothBrush]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg559zz3d8o

This is worth a read. It's about the trial in France of a surgeon abusing children.

The last paragraph is the real killer and worth thinking about...

A more wary assessment came from the lawyer, Ms Guedj-Benayoun.

"Now, there is a very important standoff between those who want to denounce child sexual violence and those who want to cover it up, and this standoff is taking place today in this trial. Who will win?" she wondered.

It's indicative of institutional coverup and self service. Pelicot was different in a way because it was about individuals rather than the establishment and organisations.

It highlights how much institutions protect abusers. And continue to protect themselves without regard to victims long after a scandal is exposed.

Many things to ponder here.

That's what the BBC did with their institutional enabling of child sex abuse.

Can't let anyone know otherwise we'll look bad!

The Catholic Church is another story entirely. That was more like "come here if you want to abuse children because we are one of you".

Every council in our country who has protected and thereby enabled Pakistani paedophile rings in Rotherham, Rochdale, Newcastle and Greater Manchester have sunk to the same low.
Cover it up.or we'll lose funding!

Never mind children getting raped. Who cares.
Self interest is what matters. Can't be called racist or transphobic at any cost.

The people who run our country are sick. Deranged, even. Total sociopaths.

I think France is about 30 years behind the UK in dealing with historical child abuse. They're still at the 'pretend it didn't happen and it might go away' stage.

That's the Catholic church for you !!

But don't imagine I think the UK has got it right because we still have a very long way to go.

Long standing and known paedophiles in Rochdale were not all "Pakistani", and nor are many paedophiles - including the one in France in this story. Paedophiles do not belong to one section of society. It is knee jerk reactions like this - focussing on personal prejudices that tar an entire section of society for the actions of a few - that make discussions volatile. Catholics are not paedophiles. Pakistani's are not paedophiles. Some adults, mainly but not exclusively, men are paedophiles. They come from every walk of life, and demonising one section of society for the actions of a few of them allows the others to walk unseen.

Are you actually claiming that the parts of the Catholic church that are not paedophiles, have been good at exposing the sins of their fellow priests @PhilippaGeorgiou

How can you ignore the fact that the institution of the Catholic church which includes ALL of them, right the way up to the pope, has set out from the start to protect their own.

Much like the Church of England.

Are you saying that all Catholics are paedophiles? There is - as I pointed out - a very large difference between saying that "ALL" (your word) Catholics are paedophiles or have conspired to cover up child sexual abuse, and the actual facts that SOME people in all walks of life are paedophiles and that as a society generally be need to address how this is ignored or brushed aside ACROSS society.

But thanks for ably demonstrating my point - I should have known better than to think that there could be a rational discussion.

I agree with much of what you say, PhilippaGeorgiou.

For years it was 'look what happened in the catholic church!' and then it was revealed that it was happening in all religions.
It was 'look what happened in Ireland!' and then it was revealed that it was happening everywhere.
It was 'it's a witch-hunt, he's a celebrity/a friend of royalty/on the telly every week/a fundraiser for charity' and then it was revealed it was Jimmy Savile and Gary Glitter and R Kelly and so many more..
It was 'but it's only a few perverts!' and then it was revealed that it was fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles, pillars of society, decent blokes, lovely neighbours.

In Ireland, the term 'sexual abuse of children' was almost replaced in the public mind by 'clerical abuse of children', although that was only a small part of the sexual abuse of children happening everywhere.

Every case of organised, large-scale abuse of children must be fully investigated and dealt with, but we have to be careful not to let the everyday abuse of children that goes on in so many places, including family homes and online, slide under the radar as a consequence.

I'm not sure what your problem is.

No one has suggested otherwise on this thread.

You are part of the problem with an attitude like that.

this is so shocking.... really, why are not more people talking about it in France? It does not make sense

I think there has been this culture in France, being the country of lurve, that they are not uptight or prudes like, e.g. the English. No one bats an eyelid if a man has a mistress, the leader of the country has a relationship with a questionable origin, public figures don’t get judged for sexual indiscretion, it’s been part of their brand. But it’s probably been a charter to turn a blind eye to sexual abuse. Possibly a far reach on my part, Gallic shrug 🤷‍♀️

I think you're missing a fundamental point here.

Men with an interest in sexually abusing children are drawn to roles that a) give easy access to victims b) confer them with an aura of respectability, making them harder to challenge.

So there will be a disproportionate number of child sexual abusers among the priesthood, the teaching profession, the medical profession and so on. This is well known.

It should be fairly obvious that most child sex abusers in the UK aren't Pakistani. After all, Pakistanis make up less than 3% of the population - it would be extraordinary if the majority of child sex abusers were Pakistani. Nonetheless, it has become quite clear over the past 30 years that there was a particular problem with gangs of Pakistani men engaged in organised sexual abuse and torture of young girls, often white, often from care backgrounds. Pretending that this wasn't the case and doesn't require particular investigation is to do a huge disservice to those girls who were harmed.

You have a point, Davros - I was in France in 2012 when an English teacher in his 30s ran away to France with a 15 year old girl, a pupil of his, who he was in a sexual relationship with.

I was shocked at the 'so what?' or 'isn't that romantic' attitude of my French acquaintances - not my close friends, though, who quickly understood what I was saying about breach of trust and abuse, and admitted that they didn't even know what the age of consent was in their country, but they saw what was wrong with what he had done, They became quite vocal to their friends about consent, grooming and breach of trust.

I think attitudes inn France have changed since then, and the concept of 'sexual abuse of a child' or 'age of consent' have become more legally codified, rather than just a case-by-case laissez faire attitude.

It's indicative of institutional coverup and self service. Pelicot was different in a way because it was about individuals rather than the establishment and organisations.

In the Pelicot case many, many 'ordinary' men were abusers and it forced people to consider 'could one of the men in my life be capable of this?'.
In this French surgeon case there is only one abuser (though many victims) and I think people default to the 'one bad apple' train of thought.
Most people would rather not stare into the abyss of these crimes and so find a way to mentally dismiss them, if possible.

From the article: "Comparisons were quickly made with - and expectations tied to - last year's Pelicot mass rape trial in southern France and the massive global attention it garnered."

I'm a bit surprised to read that, because there are some big differences between the Pélicot and the Le Scouarnec cases, and they were bound to have a massive impact on how they would be received.

One such major difference, for example, is the fact that Gisèle Pélicot was a lone woman facing 50 predatory men, so of course, everyone wanted to protect her or at the very least to support her. On the contrary, there are literally hundreds of Le Scouarnec's victims, so sympathy for them is diluted, and the will to support them lacks an anchor to attach itself to.

That said, I won't deny that France is simply not a country that cares much about pedophilia. It's a bit better now than 50 years ago, when some intellectual elites outright defended pedophilia, but for example, it still took until 2021 for a law to be passed saying that a child below the age of 15 could not consent to sex with an adult.

As someone with a French mother, therefore a French national, and who has spent a lot of her life in France, you have hit the nail on the head! France the country of luuuuurrrrrve, j'adore!😂

Next Tuesday I am going to the Royal Geographic Society to hear speak Caroline Darian, the daughter of Gisele and Dominque Pelicot. Though the case interests me a lot, I am also slightly nervous what I'm going to hear.

I think you are missing the point. The point of identifying certain groups within society is because their status enables them to cover up. The church knowingly ignored severe and repeated cases of paedophilia. the police ignored Muslim groomers of pubescent white girls because they didn't want to be seen as racist. Sectors of society get away with abusing children because of misguided collusion from other sectors of society. We should never ever gloss over this.

Thanks, @RedToothBrush , I was hoping there'd be a thread about this.

From the BBC article you linked:
In her closing arguments to the court, Ms Guedj-Benayoun condemned what she called France's "systemic, organised silence" regarding child abuse.
She spoke of a patriarchal society in which men in respected positions like medicine remained almost beyond reproach and pointed to "the silence of those who knew, those who looked the other way, and those who could have – should have – raised the alarm".

The difference between the amount of coverage of the Pelicot case and this one is quite striking.

There was an attempt to downplay and brush the Pelicot case under the carpet at the beginning, by the Mayor the town, but the public response from women didn't allow it to happen.

@Illegally18 I thought you were going to say I’m talking xenophobic hogwash!

I refer everyone to this post made in 2019:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3512177-Julia-Long-asking-Munro-Bergdorf-about-child-exploitation?reply=85080591

"How did the scandal of TV entertainers grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?
How did the scandal of Catholic priests grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?
How did the scandal of on-street gangs grooming and exploiting children get so bad before anything was done?
Because if you create a sacred caste of any group and silence anyone asking questions about individuals on behalf of the sacred caste, abusers will see, infiltrate, and groom and exploit children. That''s how."

There was also the scandal of the French philosophers who made child grooming an intellectual pass time.

lol!

Yes.
That continues to be utterly sickening.

By the logic of
PhilippaGeorgiou

People say "paedophiles exist in all walks of life"

PhilippaGeorgiou says "how dare you say every human being in all walks of life is a paedophile"

Just ignore.

There is a problem in the UK and other countries with enabling paedophilia, simply because it's easier to pretend it isn't going on rather than do anything about it.
This is a core principle of patriarchy in action. Self interest, self preservation, self entitlement.

I had already posted this link to the existing thread that is monitoring instances that show the Pelicot case isn't a one off.

Think it is worthwhile building up a history of instances of this rather than random threads which make it easier to see as an "extreme" rather than the horrifying fact that it day to day.

That is absolutely not what I said, although I also didn't expect a rational discussion on the subject either, so I am not disappointed in that respect. What I said was that to tackle paedophilia we need to tackle it directly in every walk of life and not deflect from that by false narratives that suggest that it only exists or mainly exists in specific circumstances or groups.

No, I'm saying that to support the Catholic church (or most churches including the church of England) makes you an apologist, which you have ably demonstrated on this thread.

As with the issues with the grooming gangs. By minimising or denying the problem you allow it to continue.