PARIS – The French think-tank “Foundation Jean Jaures” prepared a report,which shows that about four million French women – or 12% of the femalepopulation of the country – have been raped at least once in their lives.
Of these women polled, 31% said they were raped by their partner, while 19%of them said that they were raped by someone else they know and 17% wereraped by a stranger. Five percent said it had happened more than once.
The authors of the survey proposed those wishing to share their storyunder the hashtag #balancetonporc (“Tell me about the pig”).
The purpose of the survey was to assess how sexual harassmentlink>andviolence are common in France.
The social media campaign started in October 2017, when Hollywood moviemagnate Harvey Weinstein was accused of rape.
*TWEET: #MeToo, #BalanceTonPorc: the power of a hashtag*
According to France’s interior ministry, the reporting of sexual assaultand rape had risen 31.5% in the last quarter of 2017 compared with the sameperiod in 2016.
Last year French Secretary of State in charge of Gender Equality MarleneSchiappa proposed toughening legislation on sexual violence and harassment.Amendments to the law also will provide that people who survived violenceas a child, will be able to apply to the police even after a long time.
However, the campaign also stumbled some criticism from the fairer sex andcaused a heated debate as to what harassment is.