A ngers embodies everything the world loves about France. Water gushes from stone cherubs on its Beaux Arts fountains as mothers sit in the sun, watching their small children spin gleefully on a painted carousel, to the sounds of My Boy Lollipop. Just km from Paris, the gateway to the bucolic Loire Valley, Angers offers four museums, a feast of theater and music, and canoeing on nearby Maine Lake. Yet what occurred here between and , years when surveys named Angers as one of the best places to live in France, has horrified the nation.
In what could become the biggest French criminal proceeding ever, 39 men and 27 women went on trial last month for involvement in a massive prostitution trade of 45 children β many of them their own. At least 26 men and 13 women are accused of directly prostituting and raping girls and boys, some of whom were still in kindergarten. Prosecutors say that over three years, some 21 couples traded their children for cash, groceries and, in one case, a new car tire.
According to prosecutors, Marine V. She was allegedly raped by about 30 men, including neighbors, uncles, her father and grandfather.
Sucking her thumb at times, Marine V. But equally disquieting are the apparent failures of the French social system: police failed to protect the children from nearly three years of abuse, and did not act when social workers warned of possible pedophilia. The details of the abuse are horrifying enough, and the tales of mothers as pimps and sexual assailants are especially disturbing.
Thirteen of the women on trial are charged with raping boys under 15 and organizing child prostitution. In their defense, many of the women have testified that they, too, were victims of incest, abused as children by alcohol-soaked men at home. Marine V. Veronique R.
