2023-12-23 11:57:21
Former modeling agent Johan Mapaga was sentenced on Friday December 22 to sixteen years in prison by the Paris departmental criminal court for rape and sexual assault on around fifteen young girls between 2007 and 2014.
The court, composed entirely of professional magistrates, declared this 43-year-old man guilty of rape and sexual assault “by a person abusing the authority conferred on him by his position”. The attorney general had requested fifteen years of criminal imprisonment for the ex-agent, who remains, according to him, ” dangerous “ and which “the profile is worrying”.
The court also sentenced Mr. Mapaga to an obligation of socio-judicial monitoring for seven years and prohibited him from engaging in any future activity in the fashion industry. If the convicted person did not respect his obligations, he would be sentenced to an additional five years of imprisonment, added the president of the court, Denis Kenette.
The former agent, who appeared free under judicial supervision after four years of pre-trial detention, from June 2016 to June 2020, was arrested when the verdict was announced before being handcuffed to be taken to prison.
The young female civil parties welcomed the verdict with dignity, all in tears. ” Finally ! »declared one of them, a minor at the time of the events. “I am aware of the harm I have done. I have nothing else to add”the accused simply declared before the court withdrew to deliberate.
Also read the column: Article reserved for our subscribers Sexual violence: “It is urgent to criminally redefine rape, the definition of which, in France, presupposes implicit consent”
Operating mode
For the prosecution, the modus operandi for abusing young women was always the same. A recognized model recruiter and agent in the fashion world, Mr. Mapaga approached young girls, sometimes minors, in the street or in a public place, or even at the end of school. He offered them the opportunity to become models, promising to train them in this profession with a view to “national or international career”. The young girls recruited, some as young as 14, were quickly cut off from their families and found themselves “under his influence”described victims on the stand.
In terms of training, Mr. Mapaga imposed a drastic regime on the young girls. Then came the humiliations, a “moral harassment” et “demeaning and humiliating remarks” before sexual assault. In particular, he imposed massages with slimming cream on young girls, an opportunity for sexual touching for him.
“Fashion is sex”hammered the agent to the young girls, accusing them of being “too stuck” to succeed in this environment. Digital penetration, cunnilingus, vaginal penetration, sodomy… the young girls reported to the bar what they had suffered. Throughout the hearing, the accused fiercely denied having abused them but admitted sexual relations “consenting”ensuring that there had never been any coercion. “They were having fun so there was consent”he said during his hearing.
Also read the column: Article reserved for our subscribers Sexual violence: “It is urgent to criminally redefine rape, the definition of which, in France, presupposes implicit consent”
“You put these young, vulnerable girls in terrible situationsthe attorney general, Christophe Auger, indirectly replied. They had to submit to your injunctions. They did not consent to anything. »
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“Thanks to this decision, all victims will no longer prevent themselves from being happy”reacted after the verdict the lawyer for five civil parties, Me Méhana Mouhou. “The weight of shame and guilt has really changed sidesdid he declare. It is an incredible educational signal for the protection of all young girls in France who dream of fashion and modeling. »
“The criminal court handed down an excessive sentence motivated by emotion more than by the law”, for their part, reacted Mr. Mapaga’s lawyers, Mes Romain Boulet and Alexia Gavini. Mr. Mapaga has ten days to appeal.
What is the extent of sexual violence against children in France? Understand in three minutes
Better understand the extent of sexual violence against children in order to better combat it, and make recommendations: this was the main mission of the Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Violence Against Children (Ciivise), which delivered mid- November its final report. A work considered so necessary that the Secretary of State for Children, Charlotte Caubel, announced the perpetuation of this commission initially conceived as temporary.
The report reveals the scale of the phenomenon: each year, 160,000 children are victims of sexual violence. For almost a quarter before the age of 5. It also confirms that the attacker is known to the victim in the vast majority of cases.
In this video, we explore what children’s judge Edouard Durand and association manager Nathalie Mathieu have discovered over the last three years, through the 30,000 testimonies collected, and the main solutions they propose to combat this scourge.
To find out all the details of the report produced by Ciivise, we invite you to read the analysis below.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers What the Ciivise report contains to combat incest and sexual violence against children
“Understand in three minutes”
The explanatory videos that make up the “Understand in three minutes” series are produced by the Vertical Videos department of the Monde. Broadcast primarily on platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook, they aim to put major events into context in a short format and make the news accessible to everyone.
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