“I have never regretted this decision, I do not regret showing my face,” said Gisèle Pelicot, after learning of the rape convictions for her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, and another 50 years for sexually assaulting her for a decade while she was under the effects of medications. Her face is the symbol of the largest trial for rape by chemical submission in French judicial history. This Thursday, the headline that the press around the world was watching was the verdict of the Avignon court: the 20-year prison sentence for Dominique Pelicot. But the word and the image is that of the woman who shares the last name with the condemned man, Gisèle Pelicot. The woman who decided to make the process public and who forced a country to reflect on what she called “the banality of rape.”
The trial lasted three and a half months. In it, Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband and 51 other men were tried for repeatedly raping her while she was sedated by toxic substances administered to her by her then partner and father of her children, Dominique. They have all been found guilty. The five judges of the Avignon criminal court have sentenced Dominique, 73, to 20 years in prison, the maximum possible sentence in France and the one requested by the prosecution. The rest of those accused of participating in these violations have received sentences of up to 12 years in prison, below the between 10 and 18 that the prosecution had requested for them.
At first, in France several media outlets began to talk about “the Mazan rape case”, due to the town where the events took place. But Gisèle turned it into the Pelicot case, a surname shared by the victim and the main accused. When a lawyer asked her the reasons why she continued to use it publicly (she has legally recovered her original surname), Gisèle Pelicot responded: “I have grandchildren and I don’t want them to be ashamed of using that surname. I want them to be proud of their grandmother. From today onwards, Mrs. Pelicot will be remembered and Mr. Pelicot less and less.”
#Gisèle #Pelicot #exhusband #convicted #rape #regretted #coming
