Gisèle Pelicot inspires hope for change as mass rape trial shocks France
Dominique Pelicot is charged with orchestrating the assault of his wife Gisèle Pelicot, drugging and offering her to a stream of men he met in a chatroom and filming the repeated rapes.
MAZAN, France — This quaint village nestled among rolling hills in the south of France seems an unlikely setting for a crime so horrific it strained belief: Over a decade, police say dozens of men systematically raped a woman as she lay unconscious in her own bed, drugged by her husband of 50 years.
Dominique Pelicot, 71, a retired electrician, has admitted to orchestrating multiple rapes of Gisèle Pelicot, 72, offering her to a steady stream of men he met in an online chatroom and filming the repeated assaults until his arrest on unrelated charges in September 2020.
Over the next two years, police would identify 50 of 83 men they say were captured in over 20,000 photos and videos recovered from his computer.
“I am a rapist, like the others in this room,” Dominique Pelicot told the court Tuesday as his long-awaited testimony began.
Dominique Pelicot at the courthouse in Avignon, France, on Wednesday.ZZIIGG / ReutersWhile the mass trial — which began Sept. 2 in the regional capital of Avignon — has riveted France, women’s rights advocates are hoping the case will prompt change in a society that they say is steeped in sexism and casual misogyny, where only 6% of rape complaints are prosecuted.
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