Par Julien Bottler
Published on
“Today my daughter is destroyed. The words of Pierre*, dad of Charlotte*, are strong. Since Sunday, February 24, 2019, at Rouen (Seine Maritime)her 15-year-old daughter is the target of a campaign humiliation and harassment on Snapchat. Photos of her naked have circulated on the social network. She has filed a complaint with his parents, Thursday, February 28, 2019, for “dissemination, without the consent of the person, of a recording or document relating to words or images of a sexual nature”.
Naked photos released
His mother Johanna* explains: “Since Sunday, it hasn’t stopped. An account has started posting nude photos of Charlotte. There are also photos where it is said that it is her when it is not the case”. And since the broadcast of these images, the teenager has received a flood of insults by message. “On Monday, she didn’t want to go to school. It went all over the school. »
When we meet her with her parents, Charlotte speaks little and her eyes always seem to be filled with tears. This is not the first time that the girl has been targeted by such a campaign. “It’s been going on for three years,” sighs his mother. “My daughter has been followed by a shrink for a year, it comes back all the time. I am sick because of this story, I no longer work. »
Charlotte, she can’t go out, sleep or do anything on her own anymore. It’s catastrophic.
The family has already filed several complaints for these facts, which a judicial source confirmed to us. That of Thursday was therefore added to it.
An illegal practice
But Charlotte is unfortunately not an isolated victim. On Wednesday, February 27, 2019, she shows us the five accounts created since Sunday to “display” teenagers. The images broadcast, accompanied by comments inviting “Snapchatters” to send others or to provide the addresses of teenagers (often young girls) are unequivocal: suggestive poses, close-up sex photos, masturbation videos… All interspersed with “snaps” shamelessly assuming to display “the tepus (sic) of Rouen”.
However, this practice is completely illegal. as we recalled in May 2018. Articles 226-1 to 226-8 of the Civil Code provide that “every individual has a right to respect for his private life as well as a right to his image”. Thus, the publication or reproduction of an image (photo or video) on which a person is recognizable, is only authorized with his consent, whether the image in question is harmful or not. The law therefore provides that it “is punishable by one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros the fact, by means of any process whatsoever, of deliberately infringing the intimacy of the private life of other […] by fixing, recording or transmitting, without the latter’s consent, the image of a person in a private place. Not to mention that the dissemination of images of adolescents can also be similar to the dissemination of child pornography content.
“I want these people to pay”
In the spring of 2018, several investigations were opened to identify the owners of these accounts as well as those who provided them with photos. Requested on several occasions to speak on this subject, the Rouen prosecutor’s office has so far not responded. It is therefore not known, a year later, whether suspects have been identified or apprehended. And in the meantime, others continue their campaign of slut-shaming (the practice of stigmatizing or humiliating a woman because of her sexual behavior) online, targeting teenage girls.
“I want these people to pay, all of them”, fumes Charlotte’s father. “I want to post them like they posted my daughter, because they screwed her up. »
*Names have been changed.
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