WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
It’s not unusual for Gisèle Pelicot to be greeted with applause when she walks through the courthouse in the southern French city of Avignon.
In the midst of a horrifying mass rape trial against her husband and 50 other accused men, Pelicot, 72, is being called a feminist hero, inspiring thousands of marches, rallies and a push for legal reform to France’s rape law to include consent for the first time.
Dominique Pelicot, her husband, has admitted to inviting dozens of strangers over nearly 10 years to their house to rape her after he had drugged her unconscious.
Gisèle Pelicot has been touted for her bravery, not just for surviving her ordeal but for waiving her right to anonymity, and her composure in the witness box, where she stands firm that it’s the men — not her — who should be ashamed.
And now that Pelicot has taken the stand for a second time in the trial, which began on Sept. 2, her words have been shared across media and social platforms, with people online even petitioning for her to be made Time magazine’s Person of the Year or be given the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sexual assault experts and advocates say she’s changing the discourse about rape, and Pelicot herself has said she’s “determined that things change in this society.”
“I’ve decided not to be ashamed. I’ve done nothing wrong…. They are the ones who must be ashamed,” Pelicot said Wednesday.
This flips the script on the history of victim-blaming and shaming that is often seen around sexual assault survivors, said Bailey Reid, CEO of the Ottawa-based sexual violence prevention program The Spark Strategy.
“So often, survivors feel they should be ashamed of what happened to them and that they should blame themselves in some way,” Reid told CBC News.
Gisèle Pelicot, who was allegedly drugged and raped by dozens of men in a scheme orchestrated by her husband, was greeted with flowers and applause after testifying in a public trial.
“By going public and calling out the perpetrators, Gisèle Pelicot shifts the shame from the victim — where patriarchy and rape culture place the blame — to the perpetrators,” said Ummni Khan, an associate professor in the department of law and legal studies at Carleton University in Ottawa.
“Instead, she asserts her power as a survivor, as a hero, in fact, for the women in France and all over the world.”
Men who apologized ‘trying to excuse themselves’
Over the last several weeks, the court learned that Pelicot and her husband of 50 years lived in a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence. In 2020, a security agent caught Dominique Pelicot taking photos up women’s skirts in a supermarket, leading investigators to search his phone and computer.
They found thousands of photographs and videos of men appearing to rape Pelicot in their home when she seemed to be unconscious. Police investigators found communications that Dominique Pelicot sent on a messaging website commonly used by criminals, in which he invited men to sexually abuse his wife.
Dominique Pelicot admitted his guilt and alleges that the 50 men standing trial alongside him understood exactly what they were doing. The defendants range in age from 26 to 74.
“She is challenging the myths surrounding sexual assault, including the belief that one is safe at home and the idea that rapists are monstrous figures rather than neighbours and community members,” said Khan, who researches gender, sexuality and the law. “Her willingness to sit there and listen to the perpetrators try to make up excuses shows incredible courage.”
Despite video evidence against them, at least 35 of the defendants have denied the rape charges, claiming that Dominique Pelicot tricked them into believing they were taking part in a sex game or that his wife was feigning sleep. Only a few have admitted to raping Pelicot, and some have apologized — which she does not accept.
“By apologizing, they are trying to excuse themselves,” Pelicot said Wednesday.
She also testified how “unbelievably violent” it was for her that many of the accused in the trial said they thought she agreed to the rapes or was faking sleep.
“For me they are rapists, they remain rapists. Rape is rape…. Of course today I feel responsible for nothing. Today, above all, I’m a victim…. We have to progress on rape culture in society.”
Lawyer Stéphane Babonneau says Gisèle Pelicot cannot forgive the ‘cowardice’ of the 50 men accused of raping her while she was drugged unconscious by her husband. Any one of them could have warned the authorities anonymously, ‘and so for her this is also the trial of cowardice,’ he said.
Husband’s corroboration makes case unique
Tanya Couch, a co-founder of advocacy group Survivor Safety Matters and a sexual assault survivor herself, told CBC News she agrees that Pelicot is most definitely a hero and that allowing her story to be so public is an act of incredible vulnerability.
“Without her courageous and selfless act, we wouldn’t be having this insight into how these ‘normal’ men are behaving behind closed doors,” said Couch, who lives in the Greater Toronto Area.
However, she stressed, this kind of public support and rallying for Pelicot is not the experience of most survivors. Pelicot’s case has two factors that place it apart from most other sexual assault cases, she said: police evidence and her husband’s corroboration of her story.
“The baseline is that women are not believed,” Couch said.
Last year, French authorities registered 114,000 victims of sexual violence, including more than 25,000 reported rapes. But experts there say most rapes go unreported due to a lack of tangible evidence: About 80 per cent of women don’t press charges, and 80 per cent of the ones who do see their case dropped before it is investigated.
In Canada, too, the majority of sexual assaults aren’t reported to the police, according to the Department of Justice. Between 2017 and 2022, the rate of police-reported sexual assaults increased 38 per cent, notes Statistics Canada. In 2022, just 31 per cent of sexual assault cases were dealt with by having charges laid or recommended by police.
That year, 10,028 incidents of sexual assault were classified by police in Canada as having “insufficient evidence to proceed with laying or recommending a charge,” representing 30 per cent of all police-reported sexual assaults, according to a 2024 Statistics Canada report.
“The public is emboldened to support Gisèle because her husband corroborated his actions. If he had said that she consented to it, that she was playing along, like most men do when they’re charged with sexual assault, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Couch said. “It would just be a ‘he said, she said’ case again.”
Reid, with The Spark Strategy, said she believes any survivor of sexual violence is incredibly brave — whether or not they choose to tell anyone at all — and that while Pelicot’s messages challenging shame and stigma are powerful, it’s important to support and believe all survivors.
“If we all started with that simple step, we could all be feminist heroes,” she said.
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.