The statute of limitations erases crimes, but never wounds. When the state sets a time limit on justice for victims of incest, it inflicts a second institutional betrayal upon them.
A taboo of epidemic proportions
Incest is one of the most widespread and silent forms of sexual violence in France. In January 2022, the Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Abuse of Children (CIIVISE) (created under the auspices of the State Secretariat for Children) published a chilling statistic: according to a survey conducted with IPSOS, approximately 6,7 million French people report having experienced sexual violence within the family, representing approximately 10% of the adult population. This is not a marginal statistic: it is a structural phenomenon, invisible because the perpetrators are often the very ones who wield parental authority and emotional control over their victims. The Duhamel affair, revealed in early 2021 by the publication of the book The Big Family Camille Kouchner's book acted as a national catalyst, shattering two decades of social consensus surrounding an author protected by his connections. Above all, it revealed a reality that victims had long known: the statute of limitations deprives the vast majority of them of any access to justice.
Prescription, a mechanism designed for another world
The statute of limitations for criminal offenses is based on a philosophical principle inherited from Roman law: Interest reipublicae ut sit finitis litiumIt is in society's interest that conflicts come to an end. It aims to guarantee legal certainty, preserve the quality of evidence, and prevent indefinitely suspended prosecutions of individuals. Since the law of August 3, 2018, concerning the fight against sexual and gender-based violence (known as the Schiappa Law), the statute of limitations for sexual crimes committed against minors has been extended to 30 years from the age of majorityThis allows a victim to seek legal recourse up to the age of 48. It's an undeniable step forward. But this extended timeframe remains an arbitrary boundary that ignores a fundamental neurobiological and psychological reality: for victims of incest, speaking out doesn't follow a predictable timeline. It happens when the psyche is ready, sometimes at 50, sometimes at 65, sometimes upon the death of the abusive parent. The law, in its rigid adherence to time constraints, fails to take this intimate and biological truth into account.
« The statute of limitations does not erase the crime. It erases the possibility for the victim to be recognized as such. »
Nathalie Tomasini, a lawyer specializing in domestic violence
Neurobiology of trauma: when the brain forbids speaking
Neuroscience now provides crucial insights into the time it takes for symptoms to become apparent. The work of the American psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk (The body forgets nothing, 2014) and, in France, the INSERM research published in 2021 as part of the report Stress and traumaStudies show that intrafamilial sexual violence produces lasting alterations in a child's brain architecture, particularly in the amygdala (the seat of the fear response), the prefrontal cortex, and the hippocampus (contextual memory). These changes induce mechanisms of dissociation, repression, and traumatic amnesia that make awareness and verbalization of the trauma virtually impossible for years. A 2019 study from the University of Lausanne involving 600 victims of childhood sexual abuse established that 38% of them had no clear memory of the abuse before their thirtiesHowever, without accessible memories, it is impossible to file a complaint. Setting a 30-year statute of limitations ignores the fact that trauma has its own rhythm, and that this rhythm rarely aligns with that of the law.
What is traumatic amnesia? It's a psychological defense mechanism by which the brain blocks conscious access to unbearable memories. This isn't a lie or a fabrication: brain imaging studies (functional MRI) demonstrate that episodic memory areas show significantly reduced activation in survivors of complex trauma. The memory isn't erased; it's locked away. It can resurface spontaneously, sometimes decades after the event.
Why crimes against humanity are not subject to a statute of limitations, and the necessary parallel.
In French law, the imprescriptibility of crimes is an absolute exception. It applies only to crimes against humanity, as defined by Article 213-5 of the Penal Code and based on the principles of the Rome Statute (1998), ratified by France in 2000. The rationale is clear: certain crimes are so grave in their nature, so destructive of human dignity in its collective dimension, that no time limit can legitimately erase them from legal memory. They are imprescriptible because they strike at something irreparable: humanity itself. Incest shares several fundamental structural characteristics with these crimes. It is committed by a person in a position of absolute authority over the victim. It involves the systematic destruction of the child's trust, inner security, and identity. It produces permanent, clinically documented consequences throughout the victim's life. It benefits from a silence orchestrated by the very structure of the family. The difference with crimes against humanity is not one of nature, but of scale. Incest is a crime against humanity on an intimate level: it destroys a humanity, that of the child.
Comparative law: when other states have opted for imprescriptibility
France is not alone in facing this issue. Several democratic countries have already chosen to extend or abolish the statute of limitations for sexual offenses committed against minors. AustraliaThe Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2017) recommended the abolition of any statute of limitations for these crimes, a recommendation that has been implemented in several states, including Victoria and New South Wales. BelgiumThe law of November 28, 2000 provides for a limitation period of 10 years after the victim reaches the age of majority, but voices are regularly raised in Parliament to align it with the imprescriptibility. Canada eliminated all statutes of limitations for serious sexual offences against children in its 2014 reform of the Criminal Code. USAThe post-#MeToo wave has led dozens of states to adopt laws window legislation retroactively extending deadlines for filing complaints, including for time-barred offenses. These reforms illustrate an international trend: recognizing that legal time and the psychological time of victims are fundamentally incompatible, and choosing the latter.
Incest leaves indelible marks: proof as argument
One of the classic arguments in favor of the statute of limitations is the deterioration of evidence over time. In cases of incest, this argument deserves serious qualification. First, because intrafamilial sexual violence rarely leaves short-term physical traces, it relies on manipulation, secrecy, and control, not on spectacular physical violence. The evidence is almost always testimonial. However, studies in the psychology of memory show that traumatic memories are, precisely, the best encoded and most stable over time, provided they have been accessible to consciousness. Furthermore, the advent of digital forensic techniques, forensic genomics, and standardized psychiatric assessments provides investigators with tools they did not have thirty years ago. Finally, in cases of incest, the perpetrator is generally identified unambiguously; it is a close acquaintance, often a relative. The question is therefore not "who is the perpetrator?" "But how can the facts be proven in a private space where there are never any witnesses?" And to this question, the statute of limitations provides no satisfactory answer: it cuts the knot instead of untying it.
The testimony of survivors, the only barometer of justice
Since the publication of The Big Family (Seuil, 2021) and the launch of the #MeTooInceste movement on French social media, thousands of people publicly shared their experiences. Sociologist Dorothée Dussy, in her seminal work The cradle of domination (La Découverte, 2013), was one of the first to scientifically map the extent of the phenomenon in France, drawing on decades of interviews with adult victims. It precisely documents what the statute of limitations means in concrete terms for victims: the impossibility of filing a complaint when, finally, they have the strength to do so. CIIVISE collected more than 27,000 testimonies between 2021 and 2023, an unprecedented number in French legal history. In its final report of November 2023, it formulated 82 recommendations, including one to consider... "a substantial change in the statute of limitations" for sexual crimes committed against children. The institution has not yet declared total imprescriptibility, but the movement has begun, and the pressure from victims' associations such as AIVI (International Association of Victims of Incest) or Face à l'inceste is not weakening.
"You can't ask an 8-year-old child abused by her father to calculate that in 40 years, it will be too late to speak out."
Édouard Durand, co-president of CIIVISE (2021–2023)
For imprescriptibility, a condition for finally achieving real justice
Making incest imprescriptible would not be a symbolic act nor an emotional revenge on the law. It would be the alignment of criminal law with the neurobiological, sociological, and ethical reality of a crime that structurally escapes ordinary time limits. This would require targeted legislative reform, a specific article of the Penal Code recognizing, alongside crimes against humanity, a category of crimes against children These are imprescriptible offenses, defined by their intrafamilial nature, their commission against a minor, and their systematic character. This reform should be accompanied by a massive increase in resources allocated to juvenile justice, pediatric medico-legal units (UAPMJ), and the training of investigators. It should also clarify the fate of cases already time-barred on the day of the reform, a thorny issue that will likely require a compromise between partial retroactivity and the creation of an administrative "right to the truth" mechanism, without criminal penalties but with official recognition. The path is legally complex. But it is morally unavoidable. Because a society that sets an expiration date for the justice of children abused by their families is, in reality, choosing to protect the abusers rather than the victims. And that choice should never be subject to a statute of limitations.
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