Murielle Thieberge-Bété, cybersecurity consultant and rape victim when she was a child, offers, through her #Iwas association, to provide the authorities, companies or associations with a palette of tools to fight pedocriminals.
Interview by Magali Cartigny
Since the COVVI-19 crisis and confinements, associations (e-child, butterflies, etc.) and specialized police services have noted an exponential increase in reports concerning online pedocrime. According to the European Union, child pornographic content on the net (a high proportion of which concerns 7-10 year olds) have increased by 6,000 % in ten years in Europe. Murielle Thieberge-Bété, cybersecurity consultant, founded the #Iwas association in April 2022 to rethink the strategic approaches to the fight against pedocrime and cyberpedocrime.
Why did you engage in this fight against the pedocrime?
Because I found myself in this situation myself: between my 4 and 5 years, I was raped several times by a 35-year-old photographer, friend of my neighbors. The latter served him as touts and gave me this person, especially during a weekend in the countryside where they were supposed to keep me. My parents were not aware of the fact that I was in contact and available to this man regularly. I only picked up the pieces of this traumatic experience at the end of 2017, after thirty-six years of amnesia. I filed a complaint, but the facts were prescribed.
My association focuses particularly on nipiocrime (from the Greek nēpios, which means “small child”), that is to say pedocrime on pre-verbal children, between birth and two years. This is why today I use my network, my skills, and I bring together experts and professionals around this vital subject.
In your opinion, does the look of the company changed on These crimes?
The advantage, with digital, is that it contributes to an awareness of the magnitude of the phenomenon. The CSAMs [Child abuses sexual material, either photos or videos that show a child on which we commit a sexual act] swarm on the Internet and Darknet. There are categories of videos: 0-2 years, 3-5 years, etc. It’s the same as on an online store. These crimes now have a materiality, notably through the videos and photos of rape of children who are exchanging on the pedocriminal forums in the cyberspace. These children exist, we can therefore no longer ignore them, and these contents constitute signed evidence.
what are the objectives of#iwas?
It is urgent to develop a real global defense system for children. Our goal is to create a methodology and digital tools for all players (public authorities, companies, associations, police services, software publishers, etc.), and in cooperation with them, in order to prevent these Crimes upstream, on the model of what exists in the fight against economic cybercrime or military cyber defense.
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