Trajectoires biographiques de femmes victimes d’inceste : une vulnérabilité pérenne face aux violences ?

Abstract

This article focuses on the intricate links between violence suffered during childhood and its continuity in adulthood. A mixed-method study enabled us to retrace trajectories of women victims of incest in French Polynesia. During childhood, sexual abuse tends to be combined with physical abuse. Sometimes, this violence is repeated in adulthood, especially in the marital sphere. The women interviewed feel partly responsible for this, and see their vulnerability in terms of individual dispositions. The sociological approach enables us to criticize the idea that victims of incest suffer from an intrinsic vulnerability, regardless of their social background. Isolation, material and emotional dependence, and moral destabilization – processes that are linked to incest – structure the risk of revictimization.

Keywords

• sexual violence
• victimization
• domestic violence
• French Polynesia
• continuum of violence
• denunciation