A world of solutions | Mailboxes to free the voices of child victims

(Limeil-Brévannes, France) In 2020, the French association Les Papillons launched a special mailbox. Installed in schools in municipalities that wish it, it provides a confidential space for children to report acts of violence or harassment of which they are victims. In Limeil-Brévannes, near Paris, the system is already proving its worth.

At the back of the multipurpose room, just next to the stairs that lead to the canteen, a mailbox appeared a few months ago. Green and blue butterflies discreetly adorn it. The 120 students from the Piard school in Limeil-Brévannes pass by it every day. Some people sometimes find the courage to grab a piece of paper and a pencil lying nearby to write a note. The box collects their words, their secrets, their fears.

The Papillons mailboxes, installed in some schools and sports clubs in France, are not ordinary. No question of receiving invoices or postcards there. Created by the Les Papillons association and its founder, Laurent Boyet, a victim of incest as a child, they are “the only concrete object that exists in terms of child protection,” he says.

Disputes between classmates, school bullying, incest or domestic violence. All words are accepted. All words are read.

Last September, a septuagenarian was sentenced by a criminal court to 12 years of imprisonment in Ain, for having raped three of his granddaughters. One of them, Lily, had raised the alarm in 2022. At 10 years old, she had written a note slipped into a Papillons mailbox at school: “He puts his bottom part in my part of the down, and I tried to get away, but I couldn’t. » An investigation was immediately opened. “The mailbox really allowed her to free herself from this weight,” explained Emily, Lily’s mother, in an interview with Brut on October 9. “He saved my daughter. It’s the Papillons mailboxes, but it’s Laurent who experienced all this and it’s thanks to him that the association exists. »

If the association’s psychologists – to whom the schools send letters twice a week – were able to find Lily and make an informed report to the French justice system, it is thanks to the sheets placed next to the letterboxes. They allow children to write their name, first name, age and the identity of their attacker before writing what is bothering them in the space provided for this purpose.

“Half of the words deal with school bullying or incivility between children,” explains Laurent Boyet. Some 20% report physical violence within the family, 13% sexual violence, 3% psychological violence. The other words denounce homophobic or racist insults, for example. This gives a real snapshot of what children are going through. »

In Limeil-Brévannes, “the letters currently mainly concern conflicts between students. But it is important to go back to what has been written and to discuss with the students to defuse and find out what the child expects from us in this situation,” explains Myriam Petit, head of the school and extracurricular service. Even when children’s confidences are not fair or seem trivial to adults, the advisors take the time to talk to them. “It’s important to show children that we have read their words correctly,” says Laurent Boyet.

Door wide open for Quebec

In the commune of Val-de-Marne, two elementary schools have already received their box, the other five will join the movement in the coming months. It was Peggy Trony, deputy mayor in charge of school and extracurricular affairs in Limeil-Brévannes, who launched the project.

The installation of the device is done at the discretion of the municipalities, under agreement with the Les Papillons association, for a few hundred euros per year. Three hundred mailboxes have already been deployed in France, after four years of existence.

The deputy mayor is trying to convince the city’s colleges to take the plunge in turn. Laurent Boyet sees further. If he hopes that his mailboxes will multiply in France, he is also ready to deploy the tool abroad. “We can manage everything that concerns French-speaking countries from our headquarters,” he assures us. The door is wide open for Quebec.

To “support liberated speech”, the association opened its first Maison Papillons at the end of September, in the suburbs of Perpignan (Pyrénées-Orientales). Laurent Boyet knows well that the fight against violence against children does not stop when young people speak. They then need psychological and sometimes legal support. It is in this house, in person or by videoconference, that children and their parents can now find these precious resources.

At Piard primary school, the box is now part of the landscape. The children were made aware of it, in small groups, by the after-school facilitators, pillars of the deployment of the system. Soulaymane Barry is responsible: “The older ones understood well. For the youngest, in CP and CE1 [l’équivalent de la 1^re et de la 2^e année]it’s more difficult because they haven’t yet necessarily understood how to put words to what they feel. » For Soulaymane Barry and his team, the Papillons mailbox has already changed things: “There is already a climate of trust, but knowing that there is the mailbox can guarantee another form of security. For us, it is also additional support. Many children confide in adults, but the information does not necessarily come back. There, they leave a trace. »