You may have heard of the story of French woman Gisèle Pelicot, and how the now 72-year-old waived her right to anonymity in order to let the world know what had been done to her.
Gisèle, a slim elegant looking woman with a bob haircut, was raped. In fact she was raped over and over by dozens of men.
She looks like the kind of older French lady you might see wandering around sightseeing in Dublin dressed with effortless chic, maybe with a silk scarf carefully wrapped around her neck.
You might wonder how something so horrible could happen to her. Gisèle looks like the kind of woman who lives in a safe neighbourhood and likely has a comfortable and peaceful life.
As we now know, it was her husband, Dominique Pelicot, the one man on earth who had taken a vow before God to love and honour her, that facilitated and delighted in her torment.
Dominique Pelicot (72) was sentenced to 20 years in jail today for drugging Gisèle and allowing dozens of strangers to rape her while she was unconscious.
Each of the sexual assaults were filmed and stored on a USB.
Of 83 total suspects, police were able to identify and charge 50 who Pelicot said he met on a now-shut-down website in a chat room called “a son insu” or ‘without their knowledge’.
92 rapes were captured on the footage found by police amongst which Pelioct was heard to refer to his unconscious wife as a “slut”.
The practice came to light in 2020 after three women accused Pelicot of trying to film up their skirts at a supermarket.
During examination of his electronic devices, 300 images and video of an unconscious woman being sexually abused were discovered. Police also found Skype messages where he boasted of drugging his wife and invited others to assault her. The images were stored in a folder named “abuse”.
I’m not married. I don’t know what it’s like to have a man promise to dedicate his life to loving me, but Gisèle does, and that man betrayed her in ways that defy understanding.
The depths of that betrayal is something I could never have imagined even in the darkest places of my mind.
And yet today she holds her head up and smiles, leaving the court in Avignon with her lawyer by her side.
“I’ve decided not to be ashamed, I’ve done nothing wrong,” she testified in October. “They are the ones who must be ashamed,”.
This brave soul said she wanted the world to know who she was to encourage other victims of sexual abuse to take courage and to not be ashamed.
50 other men were also found guilty of raping Gisèle. Many of them had claimed that they believed she was a willing participant.
They had claimed that they were led to believe by her husband that she wanted what they did to her.
There are no words to describe them. No expression of disdain foul enough for them.
Many of them were recruited by Dominique Pelicot online. He offered his wife’s body – the very body he promised to cherish and that bore him three children- to these men as if it was a piece of equipment. A mere thing.
I wonder if at any point over the ten years he subjected his wife to the lowest form of abuse if the promises he made to her on their wedding day ever crossed his mind?
Did his utter betrayal of the vows he made to her never prick his conscience? I suppose the easiest thing is to assume he doesn’t have one.
Dante tells us that the deepest pit of hell is reserved for those who betray. That they are tormented in a frozen lake called Cocytus which is guarded by Satan himself.
Gisèle Pelicot suffered the worst form of betrayal imaginable, made all the worse because it was facilitated by her husband.
Her strength and courage is a testament to the good. That in the end good is stronger than evil.
He hurt her. He betrayed her. But he couldn’t break her. Today she smiles.