75: Victoria Climbié: Expanded and Complete

Obscura: A True Crime Podcast

Justin Drown

True Crime, Personal Journals, History, Documentary, News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 April 2023

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, hundreds of children from West Africa were entering Britain and Europe every year under private fostering arrangements. The educational and personal development opportunities available to youngsters outside their home countries meant their families often sacrificed raising their children temporarily, to give them a better life elsewhere. Under this common tradition, a child usually lived with someone who was trusted, such as a family member who was already an EU or British resident or a citizen. In a way, it was the African equivalent to British parents sending their children away to elite boarding schools. And there was a convenient loophole, in Britain at least. Given the informality of these arrangements, any person who became a child’s primary guardian was not required to register as a foster parent. This meant there was therefore less monitoring of a child’s care under such an arrangement.

In a developed country like Britain, African parents were confident their children were in good hands. They were hopeful that their offspring would forge new friendships, thrive in a far more equitable school environment, and enjoy creature comforts they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to experience. And after all, children were always safest with family members, no matter how distant the blood ties. This is what the family of 7 year old Victoria Climbie thought when they sent her to France with her great aunt in 1998. Surely in Europe, Victoria would have a better life.

CW: extreme child abuse, family violence, self harm

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome, listener. I'm glad you're here. Take a seat next to the fire.
1:00.0	Victoria Clombier was born on November 2, 1991 in the Shanty town of Bobo near the city
1:15.5	of Abizhon on the southern coastline of the Ivory Coast in northwest Africa.
1:21.4	The fifth of seven children to her parents, Frances and Bertha. Victoria spoke both her
1:26.0	local language and French as Ivory Coast as a former French colony. Victoria was a well-behaved,
1:32.8	respectful, happy girl who enjoyed singing and dancing to entertain her family. Her
1:38.2	bubbly personality and liveliness that family gatherings endeared her to those she met.
1:43.5	With her mother remembering Victoria's quote, full of happiness, with a beautiful smile,
1:49.4	the Clombier's were a devout Christian family, with Frances working as a waiter at a hotel
1:54.9	to support his large but close-knit family. In October 1998, 42-year-old Marie Tarese
2:01.8	Quau came to visit the Clombier family while she was in the Ivory Coast for her brother's
2:07.4	funeral. Marie Tarese, who had a life in France and was a French citizen, was Frances'
2:13.6	son. In Victoria's Greyhunt, Marie Tarese had been divorced for 20 years and as far as
2:19.6	her family knew, worked for an airline. Even though she had been born in the Ivory Coast,
2:25.4	Marie Tarese had come to live in France courtesy of her brother, who would provide her with
2:30.0	the benefit of a Western education in France. When she was a teenager, during her visit
2:35.2	with the Clombier's, Marie Tarese proposed a similar arrangement for Victoria. It was
2:41.0	an attractive offer. Frances had just lost his job and as a result, the family was forced
2:46.8	to downsize from their three-bedroom accommodation to one room housing. As we've learned, Marie
2:52.9	Tarese offered to take Victoria to France was common amongst families and small communities
2:57.8	in Ivory Coast. Even though the Clombier had only met Marie Tarese on a handful of occasions,
3:04.6	she was an elder of the family and the matriarch, and they intrinsically trusted her. She wasn't
	...

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