2023-07-20 19:00:00
TRIBUNE – It is an understatement to say that the success* in the United States of the film “Sound of Freedom” by Tim Ballard pleases me. Inspired by a true story, that of the director, this cinematographic work warns of child sex trafficking and the extent of the phenomenon.
I am with emotion, on social networksthe reactions to the release of this film.
Indignant Internet users express their amazement by discovering that this horrible market which brews billions of dollars. Those who have not been able to see the film demand that it be translated and distributed in their country. The intervention of the actor Mel Gibson who pleads for an awareness concerning the existence of networks of human trafficking, and in particular of children, and encourages to watch “Sound of Freedom”, there is definitely something to do with it.
And I say to myself: “FINALLY! Even if the subject is painful, the public agrees to see…”
Because let me tell you nicely: it took you a long time!
That child sex trafficking is a crime that generates billions of dollars, I wrote it already in 2000! I proclaimed it on all the television sets where I was invited. I never stopped, throughout books, articles, TV magazines, interviews… I even agreed to take part in conferences.
More than 20 years spent alerting to the existence of this predatory crime, of which any child can become a victim. All it takes is one bad encounter, at the wrong time, in the wrong place.
More than two decades of denouncing the indifference of the public authorities, the slippages of the institutions in this area, the lack of means implemented to fight against this scourge, judicial dysfunctions sometimes so enormous that it is permissible to suspect, at least an indulgence towards pedocrime and a denial of the ravages they cause in the children who survive it, and at worst, in some cases, a real complicity.
Frankly, I was beginning to despair!
Let’s talk about child pornography. I can’t blame you for not realizing the horror of this type of document. As long as we do not see them, we cannot realize. As Paul Moreira, editor-in-chief of the show, said 90 minutes on Canal Plus when I was working there, “there is a before and an after”. Incidentally, the 40-minute documentary on pedocrime, entitled “The room that accuses”, the result of my collaboration with this investigative magazine, has completely disappeared from the radar. You can find everything on the internet, except for this survey for which we received prizes.
As part of my investigations, I had the pain of seeing child pornography photos and videos. It’s atrocious. I have seen rapes of babies, yes of babies, infants, tortured kids and other images to vomit.
This is not your case, I grant you gladly. But anyway, it seems to me that it only takes elementary common sense to understand that, for such documents to exist, kids have to suffer! And it is not necessary to have studied the question to know that these children are in immense danger, that it is necessary to look for them, that the people who manufacture or feast on such documents are extremely dangerous! But you know they exist. The media speak from time to time, of crackdowns where child criminals are arrested, holders of tens, even hundreds of thousands of child pornography documents.
The thousands of children who disappear each year, the criminal networks who recover unaccompanied minors in refugee camps, the sexual tourism of child consumers, child pornography, all of this is periodically mentioned in the mass media.
In his film, Tim Ballard explains that the biggest customers of child traffickers are in the United States. I think for my part that we find these predatory customers of innocence in all the wealthy countries, in particular the Western countries, including France.
As early as 2000, Serge Garde and I brought out what was called “the Zandvoort affair”, named after the city in the Netherlands where a pedophile resided at the heart of child pornography trafficking. He ended up murdered. On the hideous documents seized in Holland, French children were recognized by their families. And behind the Zandvoort affair, a whole international network was hiding. We explained this in a book called “The book of shame. Pedophile networks” published in Cherche-Midi. As it’s out of print, I plan to put it on the internet for free, but I’m not the only one who decides. Frankly, so little has changed that the update wouldn’t take me more than a day!
Obviously, at the time as now, there were newspapers to affirm with authority that all that was only “conspiracy”. Yes, the accusation of conspiracy, when there is no argument to oppose, does not date from today. Release, Marianne and others, have made themselves the spokespersons of officials in bad faith, and have hastened to rush “counter-investigations”, composed essentially of gratuitous assertions often contrary to common sense.
I remember an article from Marianne particularly destitute where the journalist explained that there were no organized pedophile networks but that… the pedophiles had “ties between them” and formed “kinds of circles”. He concluded: “The real network is right under our noses: it’s the Internet”. As if, behind the computers connected by Internet, there were no human beings!
As for Releasethe daily hastened to explain that the address books seized in Zandvoort, of which I had personally given copies to the Paris Miners’ Brigade, only contained traders, bakers, hairdressers… In short, nothing interesting.
Three times nothing: correspondents at Crédit Lyonnais-Ukraine in Kiev, the National Bank of Ukraine, the World Bank, the Comm Bank of Social Development, Oschadny Bank, Exim Bank, the Berrents Group in Kiev, the State Export Import Bank of Ukraine, the EBRD, ABN AMRO Private Banking, an account at Crédit Agricole de Garches and a joint account in dollars in a Crédit Lyonnais branch in Paris… Not to mention prices for a service “of escort” children. Western children cost much more than those from Third World countries: more risky to get them.
A few years later, there weren’t many people left to say that pedophile networks didn’t exist, but still not many people either to demand that we acquire substantial means to fight them and to protect children.
Since Camille Kouchner’s book, it is possible to envisage that there are influential personalities among pedocriminals, without being immediately accused of conspiracy. But there is still a long way to go to draw the necessary conclusions… When judges are sentenced for pedocrime cases, the cases they have dealt with are not inspected.
We accept that at the top of the French state, a couple sends a regrettable message of impunity. There is controversy over the Polanski affair, but he at least has been prosecuted! Brigitte Macron, not even. And yet she should have. Even Wikipedia recognizes it; that is to say ! By invoking the wrong article of the penal code and therefore reducing the penalty incurred, but the online encyclopedia recognizes it!
Cases where institutions for foster children served as breeding grounds for sexual predators have been made public. However, the outbreaks are not subject to frequent checks. And the same should be done with regard to international adoptions.
In a case of network judged in France, not only the paedocriminals traveled in the world, Thailand, Morocco…, but they had in project the purchase of an orphanage in Romania! For the record, a search was carried out at the Palais de Justice in Paris as part of this case: a member of the network had shot child pornography films in the sumptuous setting of the Court of Cassation, and he was stealing child pornography documents from the seals to put them back in the circuit!
There are a plethora of cases where people are convicted for rape of minors, but also for pimping, without the clients being sought. And I’m not talking to you about files where documents disappear… The law, providing that any French resident who sexually abuses minors abroad must be prosecuted, is extremely rarely applied.
It’s all been published. Everything is under your eyes, for years!
So yes, I am happy with the success met by “Sound of Freedom”. After all these years of raising awareness about the situation while feeling like I’m preaching in a desert, if not of indifference at least of denial or refusal to know, I have great hopes of awareness, of the beginning of collective reflection.
Obviously, the next step is to demand that an effective fight be organized to protect children, all children. Hopefully it won’t be a few more decades…
Laurence Beneux is an investigative journalist, deputy editor-in-chief of France-Soir.
*According to the classification of the specialized site Boxofficemojo, the film has grossed $96.2 million (as of 7/18). To date, it is the 18th highest-grossing film of 2023 in the United States and Canada. A real performance for a film that got off to a better theatrical start than several blockbusters like the latest Indiana Jones.
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