Criminal trials that attract the world’s attention almost always focus on the perpetrators. But Gisèle Pelicot upended that paradigm, and may have changed the world.
The French grandmother waived anonymity in the trial of her former husband and 50 other men for mass rape against her. When she took the stand last October in Avignon she spoke directly to the men who had abused her with words that will ring down the ages: “When you’re raped there is shame, and it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them.”
Now 72, she was unknowingly drugged and raped by her former husband and men he invited to rape her in their home in Mazan, southeastern France, between 2011 and 2020. Dominique Pelicot admitted to the charges. Others denied rape.
Last week all were found guilty. Dominique Pelicot was convicted of aggravated rape and given the maximum 20-year sentence. Forty-nine co-defendants were found guilty of aggravated rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault and sentenced to between three and fifteen years imprisonment. A fiftieth was found guilty of drugging and raping his own wife. The trial sparked calls for “consent” to be added to French rape law and also acted as a magnifying glass on masculinity.
Her heroism exploded the “stranger” rapist myth. The majority of the 50 men on trial alongside Dominique Pelicot lived locally and were aged between 26 and 74. Ordinary men, they included a nurse, a journalist, a prison warden, a local councillor, a carpenter, a soldier, a plumber, lorry drivers and farm workers. Two thirds had children. About 40 per cent had criminal records, several for domestic abuse and two for rape. A third suffered from alcoholism or drugs. Around a dozen reported being sexually abused as children. Others came from stable, loving homes.
Dominique Pelicot fished for men, circulating videos and photographs of his wife on online chat platforms, a dark illegal world of dehumanising sexual material that evades authorities. But dark web platforms are only part of the picture: popular “mainstream” platforms also shape men’s behaviours and beliefs about women; several of the men on trial consumed a significant amount of online pornography. The Mazan rapes should increase pressure for holding the platforms to account for the harms they help foster.
Gisèle Pelicot’s strength attracted international solidarity, but most French women alleging sexual assault are confronted by a justice system that still does not deal with consent. Over the past decade, 86 per cent of reports of sexual violence have been dropped, and of the 14 per cent that make it to trial, 13 per cent end with convictions.
It is widespread. The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research said the low conviction rate among reported sexual assaults was a consistent feature of our justice system: in 2022, about 9 per cent of sexual assault allegations made to NSW Police resulting in convictions.
Gisèle Pelicot requested the trial take place in open court because she wanted the world to know what had happened. Her bravery is a symbol for many sexual assault survivors.
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