It leads to resignations, apologies and public statements... A wave of denunciations on social networks has shaken the cultural communities in Québec for several days and begins to shake the world of politics, education, or restoration.
" She told me that she was going to put me in a cage, that she was going to feed me. All this on a your super sexual and me stroking her arms, " said on Instagram the quebec singer Safia Nolin. She accuses the actress and host By Morin to have harassed her and him to have bitten the thigh, in a bar in Montreal, in may 2018. The applicant has admitted to having " improper behaviour ".
The penalty was not long in coming : a few days later, emissions and content in which it appeared the young woman was removed from television platforms. An ad for a car that she was driving has been removed, its name has been removed from the list of multiple art prizes to come. In the music industry, the record label Dare to Care Records was separated from her president Eli Bissonnette and singer Bernard Adamus, " who have committed any wrongdoing ". "My apologies won't change the facts," admitted the singer on Instagram.
"A culture of silence"
The site Say its name, has unveiled a " list of potential abuseuses/abusers ", in which were cited Thursday for anonymously several hundreds of names of public figures, but also of citizens, including musicians, teachers or even people from the sector of the restoration. On Facebook or Instagram, where the movement was born two weeks ago, many accounts recording of testimonies, like @victims_voices_quebec (12 400 subscribers).
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"A culture of silence, promoting sexual violence, is rampant in the literary community for several years, or even decades," charges a letter addressed to the literary community, signed by one hundred women who refuse that " the medium is the hunting ground for predators ". This move is " unprecedented in its magnitude and in the multiplicity of environments that are concerned ", according to Agence France-Presse Sandrine Ricci, a specialist in sociology, feminist and sexual violence at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM).
"An effect associated with the containment"
" there is clearly a will to name the abuser ", she says, noting that this process " was much less than seen in previous waves ". "These are very young women who denounce," notes Sandrine Ricci. It is the hypothesis of a maturation process of "some achievements of the movement #MeToo "and" an effect associated with the confinement, the fact that people spend more time on social networks ".
The wave also affects the political sphere. An anonymous testimony, relayed by the page Facebook Hyenas in petticoats, refers to the leader of the Bloc québécois Yves-François Blanchet, for allegations dating back to 1999, when he was the artistic agent. The interested party categorically denies. The Prime minister of quebec, François Legault, is supported by the opposition, has made his support for the movement and praised the "courage" of dénonciatrices. His minister of Justice reflects on easing the judicial process for women victims of sexual assault, he added.
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"300 requests in ten days"
" It's really a cry from the heart ", provides to the Agency France-Press Marie-Christine Michaud, spokesperson and coordinator of the network of Centres d'aide aux victimes d'actes criminels (Cavac), which are located throughout the province, that "seems to observe an increase in" calls. "We thought we had 200 applications per month, we received 300 applications in ten days," says Sophie Gagnon, director-general of Juripop, which offers legal support to victims of sexual violence for the month of June.
Quebec is the province in Canada that has recorded the greatest increase in the number of sexual assaults reported by the police after the movement #MeToo (+ 61 %), according to a Statistics Canada report released in 2018. In the wake of the scandal, Harvey Weinstein in the United States and the movement #MeToo, the ex-quebec producer Gilbert Rozon, deposed president of the Just for Laughs group, is to be tried in October on charges of rape and indecent assault on a victim.
