When the verdict came down in the Gisèle Pelicot trial, it made international headlines. For nearly a decade, Gisèle’s husband, Dominique Pelicot, drugged her and invited strangers to rape her while she was unconscious, filming these heinous acts. Dominique received the maximum sentence of 20 years for aggravated rape, while 49 other men were also convicted of rape, and two additional men were found guilty of sexual assault.
Many victims would understandably prefer to keep such a case private, inadvertently shielding their perpetrators in the process. But Gisèle, now 71, made a different choice. She broke her silence and waived her anonymity to shift the shame from herself to the offenders. She is, without question, a hero.
Her decision to take this case public in every possible way ― down to pushing for the videos to be shown in court ― has done much to shift shame back to its appropriate place. It’s incredibly courageous of a grandmother without a history of activism to take such an unwavering stance. But as much as her bravery deserves celebration, the verdicts left me neither relieved nor hopeful for the future.
The scale of this case ― with 51 perpetrators identified and 92 recorded assaults ― is staggering. In U.S. legal terms, Dominique would be the ringleader of a RICO-style rape conspiracy. Yet, the French justice system treated it as a series of individual transgressions, ignoring the systemic misogyny underpinning the crimes. And, as this wasn’t a crime like fraud or bribery, I doubt we would have done any better here. It seems like the only time rape is taken seriously is when there’s DNA evidence, and the victim is dead.
Yes, the trial ended with guilty verdicts, but I was shocked by Dominique Pelicot’s sentence. Twenty years ― the maximum penalty under French law for aggravated rape ― feels woefully inadequate. It’s significant on paper, especially near the end of a person’s life, yet it feels like a drop in the ocean of justice that such a case demands.
How can 20 years account for nearly a decade of methodical, sadistic abuse that left Gisèle questioning the reality of her entire adult life and contemplating suicide? How does it measure up to the horror Dominique induced by drugging his wife into submission, and gaslighting her as he drove her to doctor’s appointments as she tried to solve the medical mystery of her increasing blackouts that he willfully caused? Or to the depravity of orchestrating a network…
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