The association SOS Inceste et violences sexuelles benefits from the work of a team of psychologists who provide daily support for the reconstruction journey of victims, specializing in psychological trauma and the long-term consequences of such trauma.
Victims can reach out directly through the website or via institutions, doctors, or psychologists. “But the only way to reach victims is through prevention,” explains Catherine Milard.
The association therefore works in middle schools. So why at this specific time? It's because the age of first assaults is around 8 years old. “However, at 8 years old, children are still extremely under the influence of the abuser,” explains the director. “But we can reach them during adolescence. The sooner we take care of them, the sooner we help them rebuild and become adults.”
The support provided concerns women around 35 years old, who come after what is known as the period of traumatic amnesia. “When they arrive, they are in terrible breakdowns where they relive the trauma with great suffering. So it’s a very long process, lasting one year, two years, or even three years.”
For Catherine Milard, the number of associations functioning like SOS Inceste et violences sexuelles, offering free daily psychological support in France with professionals specializing in psychological trauma, is still too low. This implies the difficulty of finding a specialized psychologist. “What we observe is that these women have been in therapeutic wandering for years. What is important is specific support. And it’s essential to help them in their reconstruction.”
For adolescents, the interaction period will be much shorter, firstly because they have not developed all the symptoms and also because they do not necessarily feel the need to go too far in the support. What they need is to be able to express themselves, to be believed, and to be heard.
Prevention is one of the essential tools if we want to identify issues as quickly as possible. "The sooner we identify, the sooner we can take care of the young people and the sooner they can rebuild without repeating the cycle,” insists the director of the association. Especially when we know that 50% of abusers have themselves been victims of sexual violence in childhood.
“If we want, at some point, to perhaps not stop the scourge, that’s utopian, but at least to reduce the number of sexual assaults on children, there needs to be support as quickly as possible,” concludes Catherine Milard.
