Abused children, a silence to break

Every day, nearly two children in France die from acts of abuse. Victims of beatings, mistreatment, harassment, rape or neglect. They also die from the silence that surrounds them in the family circle or in a society that would sometimes prefer not to see or hear them.

However, in the offices of courthouses and police stations, or in the corridors of hospitals, prosecutors, police officers and doctors are trying to better protect minors, to speed up investigations, to listen in order to better collect revelations, to understand words in order to better put words on suffering.

In Paris, Dr. Caroline Rey-Salmon, the vice-prosecutor Sylvain Barbier Sainte-Marie and the police commander Guy Bertrand have made the fight against child abuse a daily battle.