Sexual violence: at the heart of an overwhelming investigation

14.5 % of women and 6.4 % of men in France, or about 5.5 million people, were reportedly faced before the age of 18 with sexual violence.These are the frightening data of an investigation carried out by the INSERM on behalf of the CIASse, the independent committee on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.Back on the genesis and implementation of this singular work in more ways than one.

An article to find in n ° 52 of the Inserm magazine

Shock wave, earthquake, explosion ... It is in these terms that the media welcomed the publication, on October 5, of the report of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase).Fruit of 32 months of work and close to 2,500 pages, this document has deeply shaken French society and the Catholic institution.It denounces a massive phenomenon of sexual violence within the Church, revealing the breaches of an institution which sacrificed the protection of the victims to preserve its image and its cohesion. Pour parvenir à ces conclusions, la Ciase s’est appuyée sur plusieurs études qu’elle a elle-même commissionnées – notamment une enquête sociodémographique réalisée par l’Inserm sous la houlette de Nathalie Bajos¹, directrice de recherche Inserm et directrice d’études à l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)."This work consisted in characterizing the population of victims sexually abused by a member of the Catholic Church since 1950, and in studying the social and institutional logics which allowed the occurrence of such abuses," explains the researcher, specialist in gender questionsand sexuality.

In search of victims

Pour réaliser cette enquête, Nathalie Bajos s’est entourée d’une équipe composée d’Axelle Valendru¹, experte démographe, et de deux chercheurs en sociologie, Julie Ancian¹ et Josselin Tricou².Together, they developed a questionnaire intended to characterize the profile of the victims of sexual abuse who responded to the call for testimonies launched by the CIASse between June 2019 and January 2020.A total of 1,628 questionnaires were completed.In order to finely analyze the links between these victims and their attackers, the circumstances of the occurrence of violence or the reactions of people informed of these abuses, 69 sociological interviews were then carried out."The data collected, crossed with those obtained by the analysis of the questionnaires, made it possible to identify six types of social configurations which promote the occurrence of sexual violence on minors within the Church," reports Josselin Tricou.The study of the questionnaires also revealed that the people who answered the call for testimony often had a specific social profile."These are mainly fairly older men, who belong to rather favored social categories and who remain fairly close to the Church," said Josselin Tricou.They cannot therefore be considered representative of all people attacked in France.The team of researchers then conducted a new survey, in the general population this time, to estimate the prevalence of sexual violence perpetrated on minors."Its originality was to estimate this prevalence within the Catholic Church and to compare it to that of sexual violence committed in other spheres of socialization, such as the family, the school or the airy centers," explains Nathalie Bajos.This sociological survey was carried out with the help of a survey institute.This protocol, which does not correspond to the usual standards of scientific surveys, of course causes recruitment biases;But to limit them, the panelists, selected according to the quota method, have been drawn in semi-actual way, ”specifies the sociologist-demographer.Finally, it was a sample of 28,010 people over the age of 18, representative of the general population, which was interviewed online between November 25, 2020 and January 28, 2021.

Data shock

The results obtained are consistent with those of the last survey conducted on the subject by Public Health France, in the 2016 Health Barometer.And they are shocking.Reported to the entire major French population, data suggest that sexual violence perpetrated against a minor concern 14.5 % of women and 6.4 % of men in France, or around 5.5 million adults.The survey confirms that all social circles are affected, and that the vast majority of abuses - 95 % - are committed by men."Male domination over our society is a key factor in the occurrence of sexual assault," said Nathalie Bajos.In addition, the framework in which the most sexual violence occurs is, by far, the family, but the Catholic Church comes next.Thus around 216,000 people were abused before their majority by members of the church.Note that, unlike other spheres of socialization, the abuses committed within the church particularly affect boys, pubes and pre-pubes."This is probably an opportunity effect linked to greater access to the members of the clergy to boys of this age, like choir children, compared to girls in general," said the sociologist.Intensely relayed by the media, these figures had the effect of an electroshock on French society in general and the Catholic community in particular."This investigation, and more generally the work of the CIASse which shows the systemic character of sexual violence within the Church, invite the Catholic institution to undertake substantive reforms to prevent such abuses from being repeated," saidthe sociologist.

A first step has already been taken.The Conference of Bishops of France and the Conference of Religious and Religious of France who mandated the Ciase to carry out this report have indeed accepted the conclusions and expressed their "determination to implement the necessary guidelines and decisions so thatSuch a scandal cannot happen again ”.The Catholic community has also reacted.For example, a collective of a dozen Christian associations was formed to participate in the mobilization against gender -based and sexual violence on November 20.A first !"It is rare that a sociological survey has so much impact in such a short time," says Josselin Tricou.New proof that the human and social sciences, sometimes denigrated, can help transform society.

The Ciase

The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church, the CIASse, was born in November 2018 from the will of the Conference of Bishops of France and the Conference of Religious and Religious of France to shed light on the facts of abuse abuseminor sexuals in the Catholic church from 1950 to the present day.Chaired by Jean-Marc Sauvé, honorary vice-president of the Council of State, this commission is made up of 22 expert people in different fields: sociology, history, law, theology, anthropology, psychiatry ... Together, they worked, in all independence, to establish the facts and to issue proposals to prevent the repetition of such dramas.

Notes: 1: Inserm unit 997/CNRS/Sorbonne University Paris Nord, EHESS, Institute of Interdisciplinary Research on Social issues (IRIS), Aubervilliers2: Institute of Social Sciences of Religions (ISSR), University of Lausanne, Switzerland

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Sociology of sexual violence within the Catholic Church in France (1950–2020) - September 2021