I am a retired consultant in child and adolescent psychiatry, who has mainly worked on the detection of violence/neglect at a prenatal time for preventing neonaticide, abandonment of children on a public place and the repetition of violence/neglect later. I also followed up as a psychodynamic therapist children/teenagers/ adult survivors of incest and other sexual abuse.
I was invited for missions of consultancy for training professionals to welcome women pregnant as the results of war rape (Bosnian and Rwandan)
There are many difficulties in France at the moment working in this topic: Some physicians are the subject of disciplinary and law suits after reporting child sexual abuse, it is very difficult to find funds for conducting large epidemiological and clinical studies on the topic of sexual and physical abuses in children.
Since I am retired I am lobbying the French parliament to change the law of child protection and i am also supporting the activities of an association of survivors of incest: L'Association Internationale des Victimes d'Inceste,http:// AIVI.org
The president of AIVI has initiated in 2010 a survey in using questions from the ACE Study but we had funds for only 12 questions! Therefore the results were limited.However they have slightly changed some views on the suffering of victims survivors of incest in France. We would like in the future to replicate your ACE Study in France. We do hope for a change in the understanding of hidden sufferings of survivors of sexual abuse in France!
So it is wonderful to be able to read all the information in your website and to improve my knowledge.
I shall be happy to share my experiences with the network of the ACES friends
Many thanks
Catherine Bonnet
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