By Kiersten Sipe

Gisèle Pelicot’s case against her rapists officially closed on December 19th, 2024, convicting 51 men guilty of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. The trial began on September 2nd after the police began arresting men found involved in incriminating videos and messages with Pelicot’s husband, Dominique Pelicot.

 

Pelicot had been married to her husband for over twenty years when she testified against him. While their marriage had seemed lovely to Madame Pelicot, Dominique Pelicot had been drugging her and orchestrating a long series of rapes over the course of nine years. After being arrested for filming up women’s skirts in 2010, Dominique Pelicot began drugging his wife just a year later in 2011. Dominique Pelicot would bring his wife dessert in bed after dinner, into which he would have mixed tranquilizing drugs or sleeping pills. Once Madame Pelicot was unconscious, Dominique prepped her for being raped, which included dressing her in lingerie he bought without her knowledge. Dominique had brought men into his home somewhere between 72 and 92 times to rape his unconscious wife, most of which he filmed. These men were identified through the videos and messages that took place between them and Dominique Pelicot.

 

Being drugged as often as she was began to affect Madame Pelicot’s health. She experienced “unexplained blackouts” and developed memory issues. After voicing her health concerns, Madame Pelicot was taken by her husband to the hospital to be checked for Alzheimer’s or a brain tumor. 

 

When Dominique Pelicot was arrested yet again in 2020 for filming upskirt videos, the police informed Madame Pelicot that they believed her husband had been drugging and raping her regularly over a nine-year span. 

 

Madame Pelicot wished the trial against her husband to be public. By broadcasting her trial for France to view, Pelicot wished to show all rape victims that they are not the ones who need to be ashamed. In the terrible culture of France that enables horrors of rape like the one Madame Pelicot experienced, Pelicot wanted to empower women to stand up against their abusers, and insisted throughout the trial that “shame must change sides”. This statement became a sort of mantra of the trial, a phrase that means the shame rape victims have thrust upon them by society does not belong to them, but to the rapists and monsters who abuse them. Despite being 72 years old, and unsure if she has enough time left to recover from her rapes, Madame Pelicot made the brave decision to hold a public trial so that other victims could look at her and think “Madame Pelicot did it, I can too”. 

 

The nearly four-month-long trial closed on December 19th, where 51 of the total 54 men accused were convicted of either rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. Dominique Pelicot himself was convicted of the highest sentence available in France: twenty years. The second longest sentence of one defendant was 15 years, and eight other men were charged with over ten. 

 

Madame Pelicot’s trial not only was revolutionary in the fact that it got so many men convicted, but also in the way it has already changed the conversation around rape in France. The trial reignited a kind of “Me Too” movement in France. It has sparked protests, rallies, and formed communities of women and rape survivors. Women throughout France marched for Madame Pelicot, protested for her, and lined up outside the courts in support. Women with eyes brimming with tears have been photographed throughout France as Madame Pelicot’s bravery and perseverance shift shame from the raped to the rapists, and show women everywhere that they are not alone; they are not crazy; they are not powerless.