Gisele Pelicot’s Ex-Husband Dominique Found Guilty and Sentenced in Gang Rape Trial: What You Should Know

A French man who admitted repeatedly drugging and raping his wife over a 10-year period and inviting other men to join in the attacks was found guilty Thursday of aggravated rape and other crimes. The case has sparked a heated negotiation The culture of sexual violence in the European country and around the world.

The man, 72-year-old Dominique Pelicot, was sentenced to the maximum sentence of 20 years for his crimes, which included filming the sexual assaults and distributing sexual images of his wife and daughter without their consent.

Fifty other men were also found guilty in connection with the case.

The case has shocked and fascinated the French public, in part because of the horrific details and because of the refusal of the main victim, Pelicot’s wife Gisèle Pelicot, to keep the horrific details of what happened to her in the shadows.

The case sparks a larger debate in France about marital rape and consent. But it also reflects similar political problems in the United States, where activists have only recently been able to reform laws that made it harder to prosecute marital rape. Until recently, most US states had exemptions that made it difficult to charge people accused of marital rape with a crime. An American woman with an experience eerily similar to Pelicot’s helped change all that.

What happened to Gisèle Pelicot?

In 2020, Dominique Pelicot was arrested after he was caught pulling up a woman’s skirt in a grocery store. Police seized his phone and laptop and found an extensive collection of videos showing Pelicot and several other men sexually assaulting his wife while she appeared to be unconscious. Gisèle Pelicot had health problems related to the drug takings and the attacks, but did not know what was happening to her until the police showed her videos of the attacks.

Gisèle renounced the anonymity usually granted to victims of sexual violence in France and argued from the start that she had nothing to be ashamed of. As she told the court during her trial: “I wanted all female victims of rape – not just drugged, rape occurs at all levels – I want these women to say: Mrs. Pelicot has it done, we can do it too.” . When you get raped, you feel ashamed, and it’s not our job to be ashamed, it’s theirs.”

“By rejecting the closed door, Gisèle Pelicot gave the trial a historical dimension, showing the existence of marital rape, the banality of rapists and the extent of chemical subjugation,” said Fondation des Femmes, a well-known women’s rights organization, in a sent to Vox Explanation in French. At the same time, the group also criticized the court for giving shorter sentences to Dominique Pelicot’s co-defendants. “The fight against impunity is far from over.”

By refusing to remain hidden, Gisèle Pelicot held up a mirror to some of the darkest corners of society and rape culture in particular: here was an ordinary woman, a grandmother, who suffered unbearable sexual violence at the hands of the person she trusted. Here were a number of seemingly ordinary men – a nurse, an IT worker, a journalist and truck drivers – who took part in the crime. What did it mean that so many of them were willing to take part in such a terrible act?

A Me Too moment in France

By allowing her story to be told, Gisèle has become an icon in Europe. Every day a group of protesters gathered outside the courthouse and cheered her as she entered the trial. She appeared on the digital cover of Vogue Germany and was featured as a larger-than-life mural in several cities.

Thousands of protesters have also taken to the streets to demand the government take sexual violence more seriously. Some protesters argued that French law, which bans rape “by force, coercion, threat or surprise” but does not mention consent, needs to be updated to include that rape also includes sexual behavior that is not necessarily violent, but without it Permission is committed. (Not all French feminists agree; some argue that the term places the onus on the victim to prove that she has not consented.)

In late November, just days after protests across France, Equality Minister Salima Saa unveiled a series of proposals aimed at raising awareness and improving support services for victims of sexual and domestic violence. This includes expanding the number of hospitals where women can report incidents of sexual violence. She also announced a new hotline to help victims navigate the medical and legal processes when reporting an assault.

In an interview, Saa said that there will be a “before and after” of the Pelicot case, just as there was a “before and after” of the Me Too movement.

French survivors of sexual violence have argued that the Me Too movement has never influenced French culture as it has in the United States. Vox’s Li Zhou wrote in September: “The Pelicot case is just the latest to raise awareness of sexual abuse in France this year, after several cases of sexual misconduct involving prominent actors and directors came to light.”

Now France appears to be in the midst of a revolution of its own. French director Christophe Ruggia is currently on trial over allegations that he groomed and sexually abused actress Adèle Haenel, a star of the 2019 film Portrait of a burning ladywhen she was a child. The trial began in December. Another sexual assault trial against Gérard Depardieu, one of the country’s most famous actors, is scheduled to begin in March after being postponed in the fall. Depardieu has been accused of assault by more than a dozen women.

A reckoning on marital rape in the United States

Although the Pelicot trial sparked a cultural confrontation over sexual assault years after “Me Too,” the case in some ways reflects a reform movement that has been quietly taking place in the United States in recent years. French feminists have argued that the country’s proudly libertarian culture makes people less open to the Me Too movement than in the United States, whose culture is comparatively more conservative. In fact, the USA also had to reckon with marital rape.

In the United States, marital rape has been explicitly illegal in all states since 1993. This is the result of a feminist activist movement that successfully pushed all state legislatures to update their laws. But until recently, some states had exemptions that made it more difficult to prosecute marital rape. In some cases, people could not be charged if the person accusing them of rape was their spouse. In other cases, they were exempt if the person was incapacitated – for example, if they had been drugged.

In a case with striking similarities to Pelicot’s, a Minnesota woman named Jenny Teeson discovered videos in 2017 while divorcing her then-husband that showed him drugging her while she was unconscious. When Teeson presented the evidence to the police, she was shocked to find that they could not arrest him because, although marital rape was illegal, another state law provided for a “voluntary relationship defense” that would prevent a person from being prosecuted for rape At the time, the plaintiff banned from rape was her spouse. With the help of state lawmakers, Teeson began advocating for reform of Minnesota law, and in 2019, Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill that eliminated voluntary relationship defense and explicitly made marital rape illegal.

According to the New York Times, most states at the time had similar loopholes that effectively legalized certain forms of marital rape. Since Teeson raised awareness of the issue, other states have taken steps to reform their laws: Ohio closed its marital rape regulation earlier this year.

Today, most states have closed loopholes, but there are still some in states like Michigan where spouses cannot be prosecuted if their partner is “mentally incompetent” or under 16, allowing people to get away with marital rape , are crucial. A “defense should never be based solely on a relationship,” Jennifer Long, CEO of AEquitas, a nonprofit that helps develop strategies to prosecute gender-based violence crimes, told Vox in an email.

The questions raised by the Pelicot trial are not just relevant to France and the United States – and that may be why the trial has become a major headline around the world. “It is time for the macho, patriarchal society that trivializes rape to change,” Gisèle Pelicot said in the trial. Her words have resonated far beyond her homeland and point to a culture of violence that persists around the world.