How to describe Ielena Anglade? Is she a fighter with a touch of madness? An activist for the victims of incest? A young homeless woman who makes the street world known in videos posted on YouTube? What is certain is that it cannot be reduced to the trial which opens this Thursday at the Assizes of Vaucluse, in Avignon. Théophile Ellena, 72, his grandfather, must be tried for ascending rape and sexual assault on Ielena when she was barely a teenager. "This case defines me a little: I would not be on the street, I would never have embraced this fight, if it had not happened to me," recognizes the blonde who does not have the tongue in her pocket.
Ielena's story, like that of this case, takes root in the South. The young woman, now 26, was born in Marseille, then placed with her father, who has sole custody of it. Her mother starts her life over and gradually disappears from the picture. But not her maternal grandparents. Ielena sometimes spends weekends with them in their house in Sannes, in the Luberon. There begin the first sexual assaults. Blowjobs, caresses after the nap. Ielena is 11 years old.
"I no longer wanted to bear the name he pronounced when he touched me"
Then the incestuous relationship gets worse. The grandfather imposes a first complete sexual intercourse on the one who is barely 13 years old. The grandfather sends roses to the little girl, offers her underwear. "He considered me his mistress," recalls Ielena. The young teenager decides to change her first name. From Caroline, she passes to Ielena: "I didn't want to bear the name he used to say when he touched me." "
Other reports occur until 2008. That year, Ielena is 15 years old and her father has just been imprisoned for possession of child pornography images. The teenager, who did not report the abuse, was then placed with her grandparents. Ielena is already running away regularly. Getaways she spends on the street. But above all, the young woman with clear eyes has a lover. “It was so simple and cute that I realized that what my grandfather was doing to me was not normal. She puts an end to it and threatens to file a complaint. But don't do it yet.
It was not until three years later that Ielena walked through the door of a police station. Thanks to the intervention of the director of a home where she is placed in Aveyron. “He spoke to me at length, told me that I didn't behave normally with boys, asked me what had happened to me. After an hour, I threw everything at her. The next day, the young woman decides to file a complaint.
"The street was a refuge"
But this is not the end of the teen's winding journey. Ielena is a young adult and begins to live on the street. “I started out as a backpacker. For me, the street was a refuge, the place where nothing happened to me. With her backpack, her down, her stove and her tent, Ielena lives, spends her days in the city center, begging, gleaning a few cigarettes and sleeping in the countryside, where she feels safe. “At the beginning, I hung out in the evening with street colleagues, but there was confusion, violence, I realized that it was better to see them only during the day. "
At 20, Ielena gives birth to a little Louna. Years go by and the duo alternates life on the street and life in precarious housing. In 2015, mother and daughter are in an apartment in Pont-Saint-Esprit (Gard). But Ielena lost her footing: "I was depressed, I was crying, I was taking bad care of Louna. The little girl will end up being entrusted to Child Welfare (ASE) before being adopted by a couple. "I had lost Louna, I didn't want to go back to my apartment any more," recalls the young woman.
That same year, when she had "nothing more to lose", Ielena opened her YouTube channel "Ellana the prophecy". Her first video is called "Rape incest, talk about it and help yourself", she traces her story with her grandfather. Follow “Incest French definition and personal experience”, “Incest, when the family turns their back on us” or “Incest and survival”.
"It spoiled my life, I wanted to do something with it"
The videos, which also deal with his life on the street, are not very successful. But they allow him to meet new people and make himself known. Ielena then appears in “Stolen childhood, chronicle of a denial”, broadcast in March 2019 on LCP. The young woman then transforms her story into a fight. She intervenes in conferences dealing with incest, pedophilia, in particular with the Caspertt unit (Reception center specializing in the detection and treatment of mental trauma) of the Cadillac hospital center (Gironde) or in conferences at alongside psychiatrist Muriel Salmona, specialist in traumatic memory.
Newsletter - The essentials of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
Ielena sees a future. "I made so many suicide attempts, it spoiled my life, I wanted to do something with it, Later, I would like to do prevention in colleges, high schools. Helping people who have experienced the same thing as me and those who accept their word: how do we detect incest? How do we leave space for the child to speak? She describes.
I was this little girl, broken, crushed by the hands of an adult who must have been my grandfather. I was 11 years old on ...
Gepostet von Ielena am Donnerstag, 23. Januar 2020Full of ideas, the young woman wants to make her story a strength. "I would have liked my grandfather's trial to be filmed from start to finish and for it to be broadcast to future victims so that they can prepare for the assizes," she imagines. But Ielena also apprehends this trial: “I know he will say that I was consenting. But how can he evoke consent when he was my ascendant? She wonders. Her lawyer, Me Nathalie Bucquet, says that "it is time for this bright and shattered young woman on the course of life as chaotic as extraordinary that justice be done to her". Whatever happens, the combative says it's ready. Above all, she affirms forcefully: "I do not forbid myself from going well!" "
