“I am a completely destroyed woman,” she declared on Wednesday. Gisèle Pelicotwhom her husband drugged for 10 years to be sexually abused by dozens of men contacted online in France.
“I don’t know how I’m going to rebuild myself, how I’m going to recover from all this,” explained Pelicot in his second intervention in this process in Avignon, in the south of France, which has become a symbol of the sexist violence and chemical submission.
What this 71-year-old woman is clear about is that with this case she wants “all women victims of rape to say ‘if Mrs. Pelicot did it, we can do it.’”
“I don’t want (the victims) to have more shame. Shame, it’s not us who have to have it, it’s them“, said.
“I express above all my will and determination for us to change this society,” he added.
The case of Gisèle Pelicot that shook France and the world
Dominique Pelicot71, acknowledged during the high-profile trial, which began in September, that he administered anxiolytics to his then wife to put her to sleep, abuse her and so that dozens of men would also abuse Gisèle between 2011 and 2020.
Gisèle turned to him this Wednesday, without looking at him, to ask him how he was able to do something like that.
“I’m trying to understand how this husband, who was the perfect man, could come to that. How my life could take this turn. How could you let these individuals into the house when you knew my repulsion for partner swapping,” he said in a clear and firm voice.
The 50 men tried along with her ex-husband, most for aggravated rape, They face up to 20 years in prison. Many of them claim that they did not realize the unconscious state the woman was in.
The verdict of this process, which has gone around the world, is scheduled for December 20.
