Incest kills, incest shortens lifespan

One in five women and one in ten men say they have experienced sexual violence and incest. In 81% of cases, the victims are minors and 17% of cases in adolescence, 2% at 18 years of age. In 94% of situations, the aggressors are close.

• 70% of respondents said they had been sexually abused,
• at least 68% rape,
• 40% report a situation of incest,
  alarming figures reported on March 1, 2015 by a survey by the association Traumatic Memory and Victimology, with the support of UNICEF France.

Today, incest horrifies us, but has that always been the case in our society?

The social and cultural perception of incest has evolved over the centuries, although this evolution is nothing linear. In the Middle Ages, for example, incest was seen as a consensual act and not as sexual violence imposed on the child. He could therefore be held responsible for the crime, prosecuted and punished, as could the accused parent.

In nineteenth-century patriarchal society, little attention was paid to violations of the moral integrity of abused children. Denial and the law of silence dominated.

Our sensitivity to incestuous violence today is due in part to the democratization of family life (the era of paternal omnipotence is over) and the assertion throughout the 20th century, of the child as a subject of rights.

What tools are available to estimate the magnitude of the phenomenon?

France has lagged far behind in measuring sexual violence. It was not until the 2000s that surveys were conducted on representative samples of the population and improved our statistical knowledge on the subject. The latest survey, Virage (Violence and Gender Relations), conducted by the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) in 2015 and the results of which are currently being used, shows that their life:

• 5% of women and just under 1% of men between the ages of 20 and 69 have been raped or attempted rape or touching in a family setting or close environment.
• Most importantly, more than 90% of these acts, involving women, and 100%, involving men, occurred for the first time between the ages of 0 and 18.

So are boys also victims of incest?

Indeed. But penetrative sexual violence against boys, such as forced blowjobs or masturbations, does not have the status of a rape crime. Moreover, the incest committed by women is obscured by the stereotype of the nursing, protective, necessarily gentle mother…, and remains largely unthinkable. However, although in a much smaller proportion than men, women can commit incestuous violence or be complicit in a man who commits such acts.

• 1 in 10 boys have had penetration reports from a close person (father, uncle, brother or grandfather), or an average of 5% nationally, most of these victims are now members of the LGBT community, after a report of incestuous rape.
• in 2020, one in 10 French people say they have been the victim of incest during their childhood. This reality is reflected in an Ipsos survey for the association Facing Incest conducted on the Internet on 1033 adults and published this Thursday.
• 23% of participants report having around them one or more victims of sexual assault by a member of their own family during their childhood.
• More than 3 in 10 French people know at least one person who is the victim of incest.
• 10% of respondents say they have been victims of incest themselves, or 6.7 million people.
• 78% of these victims are women.
• 22% are men.

The number of incest victims is rising

This domestic violence has been on the rise for several years, with incest taking over the issue in early 2000 in 2009:

• 3% of respondents said they were victims of incest;
• they were 6% in 2015;
• They are 10% today, according to the Ipsos survey, but this proportion is still underestimated according to the association Facing Incest.

Is incest more common in certain social settings?

All circles are affected. We must put an end to the miserable thesis according to which incestuous violence is the prerogative of underprivileged families. This stereotype that shields the apprehension of the ordinary reality of incest remains extremely vivid. It continues to be rife, in particular, among professionals from all walks of life (police, justice, health, social education, etc.) and in the media, as we saw during the Outreau trial in 2004, after the launch of #MeToo some of the victims brought light to the life lived around their loved ones.

• Among these victims, 8 out of 10 declared that the facts took place when they were still minors. One in two was under 11 years old. One in five less than 6 years old.
• According to a WHO report made public in 2014, 20% of women and 5 to 10% of men in the world have suffered sexual violence during their childhood.
• in 96% of cases, the aggressor is a man.
• 94% of situations, a loved one commits the sexual assault. Thus, one in two child victims is attacked by a member of their family.
• in one in 4 cases, the aggressor himself is a minor.

In adulthood, one in two rapes would be marital rape. Only 18% of rapes of adults are caused by a stranger.

These assaults have serious consequences for the mental and physical health of the victims. The survey report shows that 96% of victims assaulted in childhood have consequences on their mental health: anxiety, suicidal thoughts, depression, phobias … The list goes on. The same goes for the physical consequences, experienced by 69% of victims assaulted in childhood: chronic pain, eating disorders …

Consequences all the more serious when the assault was incestuous: « the younger the victim is at the time of the facts, the closer the aggressor is to the victim, the more authority he has over her, and the greater the impact on her. her quality of life and the risk that she tries to commit suicide are high, ”the report said.

« The reports of lived experiences of incest situations are still progressing strongly, an evolution probably due in large part to an important liberation of the word », in particular with the wave #MeToo. All the sexual scandals that we have known push the victims , especially women, to say what was still unspeakable before, because of the devastation that this type of revelation can cause in a family « , explains Étienne Mercier, director of the Opinion & Health department at Ipsos.

« We can no longer remain silent »

« We can no longer remain silent, nor remain inactive, » said the association Facing Incest in a press release on the eve of the International Day of the Rights of the Child.

« Incest kills, incest reduces the lifespan on average by 20 years (…) Our children are left to their own devices in the face of this crime which deprives them of the essentials to grow and recover: family. »

« The monster that I had locked inside me has resurfaced », confess and denounce the aggressor, on social networks #MeTooinceste.

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