WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
The trial surrounding Gisèle Pélicot — the French woman whose husband is accused of inviting more than 50 men to secretly rape her while she was drugged unconscious — has horrified the public, making headlines around the world.
But the case isn’t significant only because of the nature of the crimes, which her husband filmed and has confessed to, but because we know Gisèle Pélicot’s name at all.
The media doesn’t typically identify survivors of sexual abuse. Usually, publication bans prevent the media from doing so in order to protect the privacy of survivors and encourage them to report the crimes in the first place. But Pélicot, now aged 72, waived her legal right to anonymity.
She said she wanted the trial to be held publicly to alert the public to sexual abuse and drug-induced blackouts.
“So when other women, if they wake up with no memory, they might remember the testimony of Ms. Pélicot,” she told the court in the southern French city of Avignon on Thursday, according to the New York Times. “No woman should suffer from being drugged and victimized.”
Lawyer Stephane Babonneau, who represents Pélicot, told French media she wanted to show “that shame must change sides.”
The case is “horrifying,” but choosing to speak out publicly sends a powerful message, said Bailey Reid, CEO of the Ottawa-based sexual violence prevention program The Spark Strategy.
“That she chose to be public with it shows an important value that women should not be ashamed when they’re sexually assaulted. It’s never their fault, and they shouldn’t feel that it is,” Reid told CBC News.
“It’s actually quite different than a lot of the victim-blaming and shaming that we see in a lot of media, and sexual violence tropes in television and movies.”
‘This really happened’
Dominique Pélicot, now 71, and 50 other men are standing trial on charges of aggravated rape and face up to 20 years in prison. The trial started Sept. 2 and is expected to run until December.
Beatrice Zavarro, a lawyer for Dominique Pélicot, has told French media that he admits to his crimes.
News website Vox reports that a psychologist told the court that Dominique Pélicot’s reasoning for the assaults is that his wife rejected swinging. He was supposed to testify Tuesday, but was instead hospitalized for medical checks and treatments for a possible bladder infection, his lawyer told reporters.
Last Thursday, Gisèle Pélicot said she pushed for the trial in open court in solidarity with other women who go unrecognized as victims of sexual crimes.
“I no longer have an identity…. I don’t know if I’ll ever rebuild myself,” Pélicot told the court.
Tanya Couch, a co-founder of advocacy group Survivor Safety Matters and a survivor herself, told CBC News that’s exactly how she felt when she reported her own high-profile military sexual assault case.
“You don’t know who you are anymore, and that takes a long time to heal from,” Couch said. “I’m so thankful that she’s willing to do this publicly.”
Couch, who lives in the Greater Toronto Area, noted that sometimes when a survivor’s name isn’t published, the attacker’s identity is then also protected if it would identify them.
But that’s not the case in this trial, where Dominique Pélicot’s name is also front and centre.
“Kudos on her to be willing to use her story as an example to show the public that this really happened, and her own husband gathered evidence for her,” Couch said.
“The amount of strength it takes to be public, and come across as credible, and manage your own pain throughout all of it? It’s an extreme act of courage in my opinion.”
While both Couch and Reid applaud Gisèle Pélicot for going public, they add it’s important to recognize that not everyone might make the same decision or even have the choice under a publication ban. Couch, for instance, was identified by a pseudonym in media stories about her case.
“Survivors always know what’s best for themselves,” Reid said.
An exhibit at the Nova Scotia Community College in Lunenburg looks to dispel a myth around sexual assault. On display are outfits representing what survivors were wearing at the time they were assaulted.
Alleged rapists had to follow a protocol
The court learned that Gisèle Pélicot and her husband of 50 years lived in a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence. In 2020, a security agent caught Dominique Pélicot taking photos of women’s crotches in a supermarket, leading investigators to search his phone and computer.
They found thousands of photographs and videos of men appearing to rape Gisèle Pélicot in their home while she appeared to be unconscious. Police investigators found communications Dominique Pélicot allegedly sent on a messaging website commonly used by criminals, in which he invited men to sexually abuse his wife.
The alleged abuses began in 2011. Dominique Pélicot told investigators that men invited to the couple’s home had to follow certain rules — they could not talk loudly, had to remove their clothes in the kitchen and could not wear perfume or smell of tobacco.
They sometimes had to wait up to an hour and a half in a nearby parking lot for the drugs he secretly administered to her — a mixture of Temesta and Zolpidem, hypnotic and anxiolytic drugs, according to a toxicologist — to take full effect.
Because Dominique Pélicot videotaped the alleged rapes, police were able to track down — over a period of two years — a majority of the 72 suspects they were seeking.
Besides Pélicot, 50 other men, aged 22 to 70, are standing trial. Several defendants are denying some of the accusations against them, alleging they were manipulated by Pélicot.
Questioned in court, Gisèle Pélicot rejected the argument that any of these men were manipulated or trapped.
“These men entered my home, respected the imposed protocol. They did not rape me with a gun to the head. They raped me in all conscience,” she said. “Why didn’t they go to the police station? Even an anonymous phone call could have saved my life.”
Couch said the case is important because it details the “excuses” of the alleged attackers.
“It’s always women who are the ones accused of lying, but it’s not us lying,” Couch said.
She added the case also highlights how common it is for sexual assaults to occur in the home, and how — without the video proof of the assaults on Gisèle Pélicot — “there wouldn’t have been any evidence that she wasn’t just crazy.”
According to People magazine, Gisèle Pélicot told the court that until police told her of the assaults, she had been convinced that her drug-induced memory lapses and blackouts could be due to Alzheimer’s disease, and that Dominique Pélicot drove her to the doctor.
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
For anyone affected by family or intimate partner violence, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services.
If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.