French mass rape victim Gisele Pelicot condemns the cowardice of accused abusers

AVIGNON, France – Mrs. Gisele Pelicot, who has been the victim of mass rapes organized by her husband for a decade, condemned on November 19 the cowardice of the dozens of men accused of abusing her and who claim they did not realize that it was rape, and added that French patriarchal society must change.

Dominique Pelicot, her husband, admitted this drugging his wife, 71, and inviting strangers to their home to rape her while she was unconscious, in a trial that has attracted worldwide attention and become an investigation into the pervasiveness of sexual violence.

Most of the 50 other men on trial have said they did not realize they were raping her, did not intend to rape her or placed all the blame on her husband, who they said manipulated them.

“For me this is the process of cowardice, there is no other way to describe it,” Ms Pelicot said, adding that there was no excuse for abusing her while she was unconscious.

Video footage recorded by her husband and shown in court in recent weeks repeatedly shows her motionless and sometimes snoring as the defendants, including her husband, abused her.

“If you walk into a bedroom and see a motionless body, at what point (do you decide) not to respond,” she said in an address to the suspects, many of whom were in the courtroom. “Why didn’t you leave immediately and report it to the police?”

Mrs Pelicot only learned of the abuse four years ago when police came across videos and photographs her husband had recorded of the abuse he orchestrated and also carried out.

‘Rape is rape’

Mrs Pelicot told the court she was angry with the defendants, not least because any of them could have ended her ordeal at any time if they had charged her husband.

“They must take responsibility for their actions. They raped. Rape is rape,” she added.

It is the third time she has addressed the court in Avignon, southern France, as the trial moves towards delivering verdicts around December 20.

Under French law, she could have asked for the trial to take place behind closed doors. Instead, she asked for the meeting to take place in public. She said she hoped it would help other women speak out and show that victims have nothing to be ashamed of.

“It is time for society to look at this macho, patriarchal society and change the way it views rape,” she told the court. She said she would never forgive her husband.

On November 18, the Pelicots’ two sons asked the court to punish him severely. They also said that they would never forgive him and that he was dead to them. Their sister, Caroline Darian, said she believed Dominique Pelicot also drugged and abused her.

When it was Dominique Pelicot’s turn to speak on November 19, he reiterated that he had not abused Caroline Darian or his grandchildren. At that moment, his daughter interrupted him from the courtroom and shouted that he was a liar.

“You don’t even have the courage to tell the truth!” she shouted. ‘You will die in a lie. You are alone in your lie.”

Earlier in the trial, Dominique Pelicot admitted that he raped his wife while she was unconscious and invited others to rape her. He told the court: “I am a rapist, just like everyone else in this room.” REUTERS