“In court, she told him: ‘So many times, I said to myself – how lucky am I to have you at my side!’”
A grandmother in France has insisted that her rape trial be made public.
“I am a woman who is totally destroyed, and I don’t know how I’m going to rebuild myself,” said Gisele Pelicot, 71. “I’m not sure my life will be long enough to recover from this.”
The accused: her ex-husband and 50 other men, with ages ranging between 26 and 74. Among them: a nurse, a journalist, a prison officer, a local councillor, a soldier, lorry drivers and farm workers.
The husband Dominique, for numerous times, crushed sleeping and anti-anxiety medication into Gisele’s food and drink. With his wife sedated, he invited men to rape her at their home in Mazan, Provence. It went on from 2011 to 2020. He used a chat group called “Without Her Knowledge.”
A report by The Guardian narrates that Gisele simply believed her husband was being thoughtful, attentive, and solicitous. He prepared her food. He offered her drinks. He brought her ice cream – raspberry, her favorite flavor. He accompanied her to visits to the doctor because she was having memory lapses, hair loss, weight loss, and some gynecological issues. He was someone she trusted entirely.
In court, she told him: “So many times, I said to myself – how lucky am I to have you at my side!”
The husband has admitted to the rape but the other accused say they thought they were playing a sex game where the woman feigned unconsciousness. Thus, they denied that what they did was rape. One even said, if he would rape anyone, it would be someone more attractive — not a 57-year-old grandmother (Gisele’s age when he raped her).
Dominique’s crime was exposed by accident, after Dominique was arrested for taking photographs up women’s skirts at a supermarket. It was only when the police seized his computer that they found a drive containing a folder named “Abuses.” In it were thousands of photos and videos of him and other men raping his unconscious wife.
“My world fell apart,” was Gisele’s reaction to the discovery.
The trials will last until December 20.
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Survivors of sexual abuse are vulnerable during the commission of the crime, and during the process that follows the reporting of the crime. Some are doubted and blamed – they must have asked for it or are simply crying foul to save face or temper their guilt. They must have given indications that they wanted it, too. What about their skimpy clothing? Their relationship patterns or sexual past? Have they even established their credibility?
During investigations or trials, survivors are forced to relive their experience and many of them do so with a feeling of shame. That is, if the cases even get reported at all. Many rape incidents in the Philippines are not filed, because the perpetrator is a family member or a superior that holds ascendancy or economic power, or because the process is cumbersome, and could eat into the time they should be earning a living.
In other societies, rape survivors are the ones who are punished for bringing shame into the family. Some are beaten or killed in the name of honor. Some are forced to marry their abuser as if to extinguish the crime.
Tragically, some are not able to bear the burden of shame, that they take their own lives or spiral into a shell of their former selves for the rest of their lives.
In pushing for her trial to be made public, Giselle Pelicot advances the thinking that the shame should be on the rapist, not the survivor. She reminds us that abusers often do not look the part: many of them do not look menacing or speak in a threatening manner. “The profile of a rapist is not someone met in a car park late at night. A rapist can also be in the family, among our friends.”
The world has often looked to France as a pioneer in fashion and culture. The French are seen as worldly and sophisticated. But if the rest of the world should take the cue from France for any reason at all, it should be this – it is the perpetrators who must bear the shame of their deed. It is they who knew it was wrong but who did it anyway for their gratification or validation or pleasure. It was they who presented themselves as honorable or earnest or caring, or came up with some pretext to get closer. It is they who exerted power over those whom they had abused.
While there have been pockets of success in other parts of the world – think the #MeToo movement, or acknowledgment of abuse committed by priests and other religious leaders — this shift in mindset, and the justice that comes along with it, will take a long time to happen. The system that allows this is yet another monster altogether. At the very least, let us be part of its beginning now.
