Following the success of The Voice of the Survivors’ petition No. 3409 regarding its ‘Proposal for reforms to combat gender-based violence and its impact on child co-victims’, a public debate was held in Parliament (Chambre des députés) on Wednesday 2 July 2025. It was attended by the Minister of Justice, Élisabeth Margue, and the Minister for Gender Equality and Diversity, Yuriko Backes. On this occasion, the association’s president, Ana Pinto, gave a stirring speech, which you can read below:
Dear Ministers, dear President of the Parliament, dear Members of Parliament, dear all of you who are present here or watching us outside or online,
I am here today, as founder and president of the association The Voice of the Survivors, accompanied by the members of the Justice Group who worked on our proposed reforms.
We stand before you for all those who can no longer speak. For those whose lives have been stolen and shattered. For the children who have grown up with fear in their eyes, crushed by the weight of silence. How many people, at this very moment, are sitting in a room, alone, without hope, without help?
We are no longer talking about statistics. We’re talking about painful truths. Children who no longer play. Women whose lives have been put on hold. Men broken by shame and violence.Entire families falling apart because the law is too slow, justice is too cold, and we all turn a blind eye.
In November 2023, we walked between Esch-sur-Alzette and Ettelbruck to break the silence around sexual, gender-based, physical and psychological violence. Women, men and children joined us along the way. They shared their stories, their hopes, their ideas and their determination to see human rights respected in Luxembourg.
All these voices, and those we have gathered since, have given us the strength to mobilise and think about solutions. We drafted 57 reform proposals. We didn’t invent anything: we carefully analysed the laws of other countries and selected those offering better protection.
Our aim is simple: to defend the dignity of all people who face violence. Whatever their gender, age, origin or social status.
Because a child protected today, is a human being who can recover tomorrow.
Because a woman saved today, means a family that can exist tomorrow.
Because a strong law today, will make this country a safer place tomorrow.
Politicians and society as a whole must have the courage to face sexual, sexist, physical and psychological violence in order to fight against it.
A mother gave us a letter written by her daughter to the pupil who raped her when she was 14. I’ll read you a short extract:
“Every day, every hour, every minute; there’s not a second that goes by that I don’t feel like you’re there beside me, abusing me over and over again.
You’re there, the images of that night downstairs in the toilets keep coming back to me every time I close my eyes.
My vision is blurred and I relive the scene, over and over again.
My breathing quickens until it stops.
I’m afraid of running into a man.
I have the feeling that they’re all like you, […] that they’re going to assault me.
I end up sobbing every time, wondering why you have done that and why I’ve been so affected by it.
You’ve simply ruined my life. I can’t enjoy anything anymore, I’m constantly anxious and I feel stuck.
I wish I was the only one affected by this, but I’m not. By doing what you did, you hurt my family, my friends and those around me a great deal. […] They’re scared and perhaps have pity.
To think that it could all stop, that you could disappear forever”.
Éloïse took her own life, at the age of 17.
Her mother and sister are here today. We would like to thank them for their trust and courage in sharing this moment with us. Her daughter’s last words express her despair, like those of so many other victims. There are many so-called forced suicides, but they are not recognised as such.
In Luxembourg, many cases of child abuse are reported every year. But what about all those who don’t speak out?
To understand the scale of this scourge, we are calling for an independent commission on incest and sexual violence against children to be set up in Luxembourg, along the lines of the CIIVISE in France.
Every day, here in our country, women, children and men live in fear and shame. Not on the other side of the world, not in some distant reality. 20% of women in our country experience violence in the course of their lives. 17% of men.
And the perpetrators?
How many continue to live free, sometimes under the same roof as their victims? Protected by procedures that are too slow and costly, by legislation that is too weak and often poorly enforced.
Violence breeds violence: later in life, children who have been abused are more likely to become victims or perpetrators of violence themselves. In this respect, effective justice has a preventive function that can break the cycle of violence.
Dear Ministers and Members of Parliament, you are the representatives of the nation, the guarantors of our fundamental rights. But in our country:
the justice system’s social services put a ten-year-old child in the position of having to decide whether or not to send her incestuous father into pre-trial detention;
a man convicted of raping four young girls received an eight-year suspended prison sentence;
one third of complaints by victims of domestic violence are dismissed;
mediation is ordered in cases of domestic violence, even though it is prohibited by the Istanbul Convention;
a violent parent can retain custody of their child;
victims have to choose between justice and financial survival;
the voices of victims, including children, are often not believed;
victims are prosecuted by those who should be protecting them in their companies, only to be silenced.
In Europe, only one in a hundred rapes results in a conviction.
Let me read you what the German Minister of Justice, Dr Stephanie Hubig, stated:
“Anyone who beats their partner should expect to be denied access to their child. Or only in the presence of an accompanying person.”
In our country, the abusive partner always has access and accommodation rights, in the name of the so-called best interests of the child. If the protective parent tries to protect his child, he will be accused of parental alienation, an unfounded theory, and threatened with having the child placed in foster care. As a result, the protective parent remains silent.
But is this really in the best interests of the child?
Every victim has a fundamental right to protection. You have the power to act.
Does Luxembourg have the means to do so?
We have just found out that our country’s military defence budget is to be doubled and will reach 5% of our national income by 2035.
But what weapons do we have against the invisible war being waged in our homes, in our businesses, in our schools, in our places of worship, in our social services…?
This violence has a cost. The European Institute for Gender Equality has estimated the cost of domestic violence in Luxembourg alone at 500 million euros in 2021. The figure is certainly far higher if all forms of gender-based violence are taken into account.
We are calling for a massive intensification of awareness-raising and prevention campaigns, at all levels, against gender-based violence and its consequences for children, who are co-victims. This work must be carried out not only by people with university degrees in this field, which is obviously important and positive, but also by those who have suffered violence.
We demand legislative “tools” and resources for the justice system:
We call for the creation of a specialised court for gender-based violence and its impact on child co-victims, based on the Spanish model;
We urge you to ensure the recruitment of sufficient, trained and specialised staff;
We call for the criminalisation of coercive control and of the instrumentalisation of children in this context;
We ask you to ensure that the law recognises that a child who witnesses intrafamilial violence is a child victim;
We demand that the National Centre for Victims of Violence be strengthened to offer the highest standards of protection.
Our society needs a justice system that enables victims to rebuild their lives. You have the power to restore their dignity.
If not you, then who?
If not now, then when?
Our 57 proposals are a pathway to get there.
So today, we are asking you for a concrete commitment:
Use our proposals as a basis for work in your parliamentary committees to vote on the reforms;
Set an immediate deadline for their adoption as a matter of urgency.
It is high time. The European directive on combating gender-based violence gives you an ultimatum for June 2027.
Victims must be officially involved as experts in this process. The association The Voice of the Survivors is ready to continue working with you. What about you?
CLOSING SPEECH
Dear Ministers, dear Members of Parliament,
We don’t want to leave from here as usual, with a thank you and a handshake. Not this time. We want to leave from here with a clear plan, a timetable, and Members of Parliament who will defend our proposals before the relevant committees.
Don’t look away. Our reform proposals, which we worked on for a year and a half, must not disappear into a drawer. We ask you to take us on board with you.
Because the despair, the tears and the shattered lives that we represent here are more than concrete. Their voices don’t scream, they bleed…
(Testimonials read by members of the Justice group)
“I blamed myself to death for having withdrawn my first complaint after he attacked me with a knife. Because it got even worse afterwards. I filed another complaint because he wouldn’t stop following me, sending me messages, standing outside my house, climbing my fences to come and spy on me at night. The evidence was in all the messages I gave to the police. He was called in and questioned. Of course, he denied it. Despite the photos and messages. Complaint dismissed.”
“I had the courage to denounce a powerful individual and now, six years after my initial complaint, I still find myself stuck in the investigation phase: the case was quickly dismissed, with orders of inadmissibility. I underwent 45 hours of questioning and hearings (all procedures combined), was subjected to psychiatric expertise, faced the impossibility of filing a civil suit to be able to testify, I was sued for speaking to the press and for defamation, in two different countries. Over €300,000 in material damage, including over €130,000 in legal and technical assistance costs. 10 years of my life have been destroyed. I am left with the feeling that I remain a victim of this person, with the complicity of the public authorities.”
“Sometimes I wonder if it was easier to be raped and beaten than to report my situation. A social worker from the Luxembourg public prosecutor’s office summoned me. When I told her that he had raped me, she started laughing. She said “sorry, I know it’s not funny” and continued to laugh at everything I said. The fear of not being believed remains. To feel like a survivor, you need to be believed, to be recognised as a victim.”
“The child is a toy, a puppet, a trophy… I have so much to tell you about the methods used by the SCAS, the family judge and the youth services. It’s appalling what happens and how the reports are written. Children have no rights anymore.”
“My children have been placed in care because of a flawed SCAS report and there’s nothing I can do. I’m at the bottom of the pit and there’s no way out. To be honest, I would need everything. Mostly a miracle.”
“2024. She was just 4 years old. She told her mum that her Joffer (teacher) had put her fingers in her private parts. That’s why it hurt. Her mother believed her. But during the interview, the police officer called what the little girl had said into question. He didn’t believe her. He said to her mother: “Madam, you must have put ideas into her head by asking her if anyone had touched her”.”
Dear Ministers, dear Members of Parliament,
These are just a few of the testimonies gathered by our association over the past year alone.
Today, we would like to start again with something concrete. As concrete as the white coffins of young girls, women, children and men murdered or driven to suicide. As real as the diagnoses of cancer, depression and complex post-traumatic stress disorders that we see every week in the men and women who call us or write to us. These are the direct consequences of the violence they have suffered. Gender-based violence leaves deep scars, both physical and psychological ones, which manifest themselves in major and lasting illnesses and problems.
The association The Voice of the Survivors is ready to work with you. Together, in a committee, but are you ready to walk this road with us?
Do it for all the “Eloïses” who are still children, who still have hope in their eyes, for all the women and men who still believe in you.
(This text is translated from its original version in Luxembourgish)
At the end of the public debate, MPs voted on a resolution.
The text ‘Proposed reforms to combat gender-based violence and its impact on child co-victims’ will be submitted to the relevant parliamentary committees for consideration.
A document entitled ‘Why the judiciary is failing to fulfill its preventive role or is causing secondary revictimisation – Suspended sentences, inadequate penalties, acquittals: examples of problematic judgements’ was made available to MPs and ministers after the public debate.
The text of our 57 proposals for reform is available here.
The video of the public debate can be viewed here.
Before the public debate, a rally was held in front of Parliament, with members of the association and supporters holding up the canvases from the photo exhibition LET’S BREAK THE SILENCE.
