French Woman Testifies Against Husband Who Enlisted Strangers to Rape Her While Drugged
A 71-year-old French woman, Gisele Pelicot, has bravely spoken out against her husband, Dominique Pelicot, who has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged. In a powerful testimony, Gisele revealed the shocking details of her decade-long ordeal, thanking the police for saving her life by uncovering the crimes.
Speaking in court in the southern city of Avignon, Gisele recounted her mysterious health problems and a fateful meeting with police in November 2020. She was shown images of a decade of sexual abuse orchestrated and filmed by her husband, which led to her world falling apart.
For years, Gisele had suffered from strange memory lapses and other health problems, thinking she might have had Alzheimer’s. But in 2020, she was invited to speak to investigators, who showed her the images of her abuse. The images were "barbaric" and showed her lying motionless on a bed, being raped.
Gisele told the court that none of her abusers alerted the police, saying that even an anonymous phone call could have saved her life. She emphasized that she had never practised swinging or any other form of libertine sex, and that the abuse was a result of her husband’s actions.
The 71-year-old father of three documented his actions with meticulous precision on a hard drive in a folder labelled "abuse", leading police to track down 50 suspects beside the husband. The investigators counted around 200 instances of rape, most of them by her husband and more than 90 by strangers.
Gisele Pelicot’s testimony has shed light on the dangers of sexual crimes through so-called chemical submission, or drugging someone with malicious intent. She wants to draw attention to the issue and help other women who may have been through similar experiences.
"I’m speaking for every woman who’s been drugged without knowing it," she said. "I’m taking back control of my life, to denounce chemical submission. Many women don’t have the proof. I have the proof of what I’ve been through."
The trial is expected to last four months until December 20, with 51 accused facing charges of aggravated rape.
