Editorial. Young Amandine, victim of ordinary barbarity

LThe jurors of the Hérault Assize Court did not hesitate to impose a life sentence on Amandine's mother and twenty years' imprisonment on her stepfather. Because the ordeal endured since her early childhood by the teenager who died of deprivation and violence in a veritable domestic prison near Béziers is beyond imagination. Unhinged and tyrannical mother, absent father, submissive and complicit father-in-law, terrorized siblings: in this inhumane family setting, the child beaten, humiliated, locked up and malnourished, withdrawn from the school world thanks to the confinement of spring 2020, is went extinct in August that year. She was thirteen years old and weighed only 28 kilos.

On the eve of the 80^e anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp, the affair reveals the ordinary barbarity that rages in the recesses of society. And we wonder how she escaped the radar of child protection in 21st century France.^e century where the prevention of domestic violence, which kills a baby or young person every five days, should be an absolute priority. This news item is all the more revolting as the little girl was in CP when the first report was made, followed by another two years later. Alerted, social services were abused by the manipulations of an unnatural mother who waited until the end of the trial to confess the facts. As for the passivity of the neighborhood at the peak of the violence against Amandine, it prevented the triggering of the life-saving alert.

The teenager's ordeal is all the more revolting as warning signals had been raised

The framework for child protection and social assistance exists. But its concrete application requires both human and financial resources – we know that there is a shortage – and political will so that the functioning of the tools improves. For example by better connecting schools, justice, social services, in order to cross-check information and intervene in time.

The exemplary sentence decided by the Montpellier jurors is an incentive to put an overall policy back into the profession. However, abused childhood also means school harassment, cyber-violence, not to mention poverty, which threaten the future of a portion of young people. Remembering Amandine's ordeal should also lead ordinary citizens not to close their eyes and ignore the complaints of these children who are being martyred. For their use, let us remember that there has been a freephone number for children in danger in this country for 35 years. Just dial 119.