"How are you, madam, today?"
The sun is playing in the curly mane of Sophie
(the name has been changed)
, 21, who sits with her back to the window.
Her flute voice rings high, like that of a child.
"How can we be okay with
that ..."
His whisper floats in the silence of the office.
Facing her, Estelle Kramer takes the time.
Between the blonde bangs and the mask, her clear eyes seek those of Sophie.
This is the second time that the midwife receives the student.
But Sophie is not pregnant.
She was abused by her father.
Once a month, Estelle Kramer welcomes victims of incest, in a dedicated unit of the Maison des Femmes, whose colored walls back up against the Delafontaine hospital in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis). .
It was here that on the threshold of winter, Sophie told, for the first time, what happened to her when she was 12 years old.
Estelle Kramer, wearing a pink blouse, does not play the role of a shrink, nor that of a gynecologist.
More like a guide in the storm.
With small questions, methodically, the fifty-something helps Sophie unwind the ball of her ailments.
“My job is to make the link between what the victims have experienced and the symptoms from which they suffer,” explains the practitioner.
And to see how we act.
"
Acting against incest: the question stirs up public debate today.
She has been tormenting the midwife for twenty years, who even campaigned for a time in the ranks of the AIVI (International Association of Incest Victims) to change the law.
"I realized their impact on pregnancy and parenthood"
It was through contact with pregnant women and young mothers that she felt the weight of this sexual violence suffered in childhood or adolescence.
“I realized their impact on pregnancy and parenthood.
It was the last taboo among health professionals, along with that of AIDS.
When I suggested to the maternity ward where I worked in the 2000s to conduct a questionnaire with patients after leaving their nappies, we shouted loudly:
What are you going to trigger there?
Suicides?
"
Newsletter The essential of 93
A tour of the news in Seine-Saint-Denis and the IDF
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She almost laughs about it, she who spent ten years on a humanitarian mission in the battered former Yugoslavia of the 1990s, in Sierra Leone, in Somalia ... By dint of being around them, she knows that, no, it is not the talking that crushes the victims ...
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"Finally the word incest is heard": "the Kouchner effect", a liberation of speech
In Saint-Denis, the founder of the Maison des femmes, the gynecologist Ghada Hatem, very sensitive to the subject, welcomed with open arms this “tenacious, militant midwife, who has forged her expertise”.
Since the opening of the place, the consultation has welcomed dozens of patients.
The support group, led by Estelle Kramer with psychologist Marie Moquet, is always full.
The midwife notes a new affluence, since the Duhamel affair and the multiplication of testimonies on social networks.
"How could we realize that?
We are already saturated ... "
Estelle Kramer, midwife at the Maison des femmes de Saint-Denis, receives victims of incest.
LP / Gwenael Bourdon
Facing Sophie, Estelle Kramer retains the energetic, warm, almost playful tone she had when speaking to us.
“What is most complicated for you today?
"Sophie answers without hesitation:" My complaint.
It's long.
I do not even know if the aggressor was arrested… ”Estelle proposes to call the social worker at the police station, gives the numbers of lawyers.
Sophie didn't know she could claim legal aid.
"The attacker will be heard," warns Estelle Kramer.
A confrontation is possible, it is better to know that.
Then the prosecutor may consider that there is not enough evidence and dismiss it.
"The student beats her eyelashes:" Yes, that's it, the problem of incest ... "
Her hands clenched over the open notebook in her lap.
She records everything there.
Nightmares, which assail him "even during the day".
“I never get complete rest.
I miss so much sleep that I suffer from memory loss.
She tried an anxiolytic, hypnosis, a gluten-free diet to counter the pains that twist her intestines and her stomach.
Sees a psychologist, a psychiatrist, an osteopath… Estelle Kramer suggests that she enroll in the workshops of the Maison des femmes.
“It's free, everything is free here…” Self-esteem, theater, karate, beauty… Ah, beauty: the word makes Sophie raise an eyebrow.
Victims of all backgrounds and all origins
Estelle Kramer hands a multitude of poles to the victims.
Leaving them free to grab whatever they want.
She helps them find a shrink, a doctor, a lawyer, a roof over their heads, but also "a bra to the right size", a hairdresser for those who are compulsively tearing their hair out ... She took in children, accompanied by their mother.
But especially adult women, "from 18 to 60 years", from all backgrounds and all origins.
Their common point is "to minimize things", "to feel more guilty than a victim", "to have a very degraded self-esteem".
She has learned to ask strange questions: “
Do you feel abnormal?
And they all answer me:
Oh yes!
How do you know ?
"
She describes these pregnant women panicking at the idea of giving birth by natural means, "for fear of making their babies dirty."
These young mothers desperate to have a girl, “because girls are attacked”, overwhelmed at having a boy, “because he may be a future aggressor”.
"She is an excellent professional, a pioneer in this field"
In 2010, a midwife student, Magali Lefebvre, carried out, under her leadership, a survey of 133 pregnant women in contact with AIVI.
30% of them were victims of spontaneous miscarriages.
20% gave birth after term, “because they refuse this moment”: “Having a child plunges them back into their story, it is very violent for them.
"
Working in PMI and at the hospital, Estelle Kramer raises awareness among the medical profession.
"She speaks of incest with a smile, without pathos, a way of saying:
The fact is there, we cannot hide it
", says Stéphane Bounan, head of the maternity hospital of Delafontaine.
“She is an excellent professional, a pioneer in this field.
Having a dedicated consultation is huge, ”slips for her part the child psychiatrist Catherine Bonnet, who campaigns to force doctors to report suspicions of sexual violence against minors.
Sophie is gone, two young women follow one another in Estelle Kramer's office.
A newborn baby hums in the arms of one of them.
She doesn't want the presence of a journalist.
The door closes.
We can imagine Estelle Kramer returning home after this day, to her grandson who is currently struggling with his wishes on Parcoursup.
Sometimes, she concedes, she does not sleep "very well" the night following a consultation.
