Trigger warning: graphic details of rape, sexual violence
In France, a rape case has shaken the world after a man, Dominique Pélicot, admitted to drugging his wife and inviting over 80 men to rape her between the years 2011 and 2020.
According to Al Jazeera, the crime was discovered after the police arrested Dominique, 71, after he was caught taking photos up women’s skirts in a supermarket, which led to investigators searching through his phone and computer and finding the videos. There were approximately over 2000 images and films where the wife was being raped by strangers.
His wife was then brought down to the police station near Carpentras where she was shown the evidence of her rape.
The survivor, Gisele Pelicot, visited the Avignon court in Southern France on Thursday where she testified on the decade long abuse she had suffered under the hands of her husband.
“My world fell apart, everything I had built up with Mr Pelicot collapsed. Three children, seven grandchildren … Even our friends told us we were the perfect couple,” Gisele said according to the French newspaper La Depeche du Midi.
Speaking about the discovery, Gisele recalled how she did not at first recognise herself, but then by the third photograph she had asked the police officer to stop.
These are rape scenes, I’m inert, asleep and they’re raping me. Rape is not the right word, it is barbarism,” she had reportedly told them.
According to investigators, the abuser had stored all his actions in a hard drive file titled with ‘abuse’ which gave police insight to track down all the men who were involved in Gisele’s rape.
More than 90 strangers had participated in the horrific violence, who had enlisted through an adult porn website. Dominique had drugged his wife by mixing sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her evening meal or wine at home. He advised the attackers to avoid wearing any kind of perfume or smell of cigarettes so that it won’t wake up his wife, and to leave if she moved even an arm.
Gisele had waived the right to remain anonymous during the trial for it to be held in public. She said she wanted to testify “for all women” who had suffered the same violence she had, in order to ensure no other woman goes through this.
According to the Guardian, the 50 men who have so far been brought to trial came from various professions including a local councillor, nurses, a journalist, former police officer, a prison guard, soldier. Their ages ranged between 26 to 73.
Gisele revealed that one of the rapists, was a man who came to visit her husband at their house to discuss cycling with him. “I saw him now and then in the bakery; I would say hello. I never thought he’d come and rape me,” she recalled.
