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Lydia was locked up and raped for 28 years.

Lydia Gouardo, aged 45, knew a fate similar to that of Elisabeth Fritzl: raped and mistreated for 28 years by her father. This French woman's story has not aroused the same excitement as that of the Austrian woman. In Meaux, then in Coulomnes where she still lives, Lydia suffered the worst sexual abuse, locking up and acts of barbarism. A suffering that began in 1971 and which came to an end in 1999 with the death of the man who was not her biological father but had adopted her. From this, "unnatural," union six boys were born.
Unlike Elisabeth Fritzl, Lydia was not locked up in a cubbyhole that was impregnable and unknown to everyone. Her torturer managed to keep her constantly with him, during her childhood and until she was 37 years old, terrorising her and benefiting from the blindness of the law and social services. In Coulomnes the, "neighbours knew," stated her companion, Sylvain Skirlo. They did not react, neither did the public authorities. Neither the national education (she did not go to school), nor the education action service in Meaux who dealt with her from age ten to age eighteen, nor the Crécy-la-Chapelle police, to whom an investigation was entrusted in 1996, nor the doctors who had to examine the hydrochloric acid burns inflicted by her father, came to her aid.

Lydia reached out to the law but got virtually nothing.

Her suffering came to an end in 1999 with the death of her torturer. In 2001, an enquiry was once again opened, following a report by the education action service in Meaux. It led to a trial six years later: Lucienne Ulpat, Raymond Gouardo's mistress, who had helped him without saying anything about Lydia's suffering, was given a three year suspended sentence for, "not informing about a crime." To Lydia, who made an appeal, it was a derisory punishment.

The court of appeal decided on April 18th: Lucienne Ulpat was given a four year suspended sentence for, "not informing about a crime," but also for sexual assault on one of Lydia's sons, when he was under 15 years of age. The court, however, reduced the damages and compensation due to Lydia (6,000 Euros instead of 15,000 in the first instance). "The old woman never went to prison, while I was locked up all those years," sighs Lydia. "Since the judgment, I am depressed. I cry all the time. Suspended again! And I could not call my children, my brother, my sister, as witnesses. This trial was their due too." (RTL)

Village, doctors, social services, everybody was aware, but no one said anything.

From the village to the various professionals supposed to help her, everybody was aware of her suffering, but no one exposed the facts. Libération had investigated last May during the first trial in the village of Coulomnes, in Seine-et-Marne, where the family was living. The neighbours confided that they were aware that the father was also the father of his daughter's children. "He even bragged about it," they said. Worse, the mayor at the time confirmed that the whole village knew but, "The people who did those things amongst themselves, people did not mix with them. It was an undesirable family which was never wanted here." There is the testimony, appalling and without compassion, of the former mayor to the newspaper.

According to the source close to the case, cited by Libération, national education never said anything about Lydia's being taken out of school. Social services who dealt with the family neither. Worse, no doctor, having treated her, ever reported the young girl's wounds. "As for pregnancy, I was aksed who the father was, I responded with the truth: the father, it is my father. He was present at all my deliveries. No one seemed to see a problem there," she explains. The police were alerted several times, but not one complaint was dealt with. "She was faced with very serious dysfunctioning of state services." concludes the newspaper's source.

You can help us by sending clothes, children staff, games, symbolic Euro (by check : Comité de soutien " Une nouvelle vie pour Lydia" 103-105 rue du Chateau, 92100 Boulogne Billancourt - France).

Thank you very much.