The phone line " Hello childhood in danger " has received 20% more calls since the start of confinement, announced Thursday to AFP the Secretary of State for Child Protection Adrien Taquet, who says both " watchful " and " worried ".
Calls to 119 considered urgent even increased by 60%, according to data from a comparison between the first three weeks of confinement (from March 18 to April 6) and an equivalent period in February (from February 12 to March 2 ), said Mr. Taquet.
Also: Containment Causes Concerns About Child Abuse
The increase in reports is especially noticeable from the second week of confinement (+ 15% compared to the first), and even more from the third (+ 53% compared to the first), which officials of the "119" interpret as an effect the campaigns launched in late March / early April via social networks, radio and television, to encourage victims and possible witnesses to come forward.
" There was no reason why these figures should not change because we know that confinement is more conducive to violence, " said the secretary of state.
Multiplication of reporting channels
However, one might have feared that the period would also be less favorable for reporting problematic situations, on the one hand because the child victims were confined with the abusing parents, and on the other hand because the teachers or other sports coaches were no longer able situation to sound the alarm, he noted.
Read also: Coronavirus: the call for help from homes for child welfare
In detail, the number of calls to 119 from minors wanting to alert to their own danger situation increased by 34%. There are also 36% more calls from " comrades " of abused children (probably informed because the children communicate with each other during confinement by SMS and via social networks), and 30% more from neighbors .
" This means that all the messages that we are trying to relay on the need to be attentive to the cries that we hear on the other side of the wall, all of this is probably starting to pay off ," added Mr. Taquet. .
The government and associations have "multiplied the reporting channels" since the start of the epidemic crisis, he argued.
Thus, since last week, the telephone line 119 has been coupled with a service for reporting violence in writing on the internet. This device, intended for victims who could not isolate themselves to call for help, was used 130 times in less than a week. Twenty-six files were reported.
In addition, four children reported violence by text message (to the emergency number 114) and two of these cases gave rise to urgent intervention.
Under the slogan "#EntendonsLeursCris", Unicef France and the feminist collective #NousToutes launched an information and awareness campaign on Wednesday, in particular on the internet, to publicize the number 119 and encourage victims to call for help. .
" More than 50,000 children and adolescents are victims of physical, sexual and psychological violence each year, locked up behind closed doors with their torturers ", according to the organizers of this campaign.