Pelicot said of her ex-husband: \u201cI hope that when we\u2019re face to face, he\u2019ll be able to tell me the truth, both about his daughter and about everything else he\u2019s now accused of. Maybe he\u2019ll have some remorse. I\u2019m still holding on to that hope. Maybe I\u2019m naive, maybe I won\u2019t get an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pelicot described the day in November 2020 when she had been brought into the station to discuss, she thought, an incident where her then-husband was caught filming up women\u2019s skirts.<\/p>\n
She saw a police officer\u2019s \u201cface start to change\u201d as he pointed to a stack of files. She was asked if she recognised herself in a photo of a woman being raped by a man she did not know.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd of course I didn\u2019t recognise myself, because I was with a man I didn\u2019t know, who was raping me. I said: \u2018I don\u2019t know this man\u2019 \u2026 He shows me a second photo, which is pretty much the same, and he says: \u2018That\u2019s you there.\u2019 I say no, and he says: \u2018This is your room, Madame Pelicot, these are your bedside lamps. We searched your home, these are your belongings.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The police officer told her Dominique was in custody and that 53 people had been arrested. \u201cHe tells me that I have been raped about 200 times. I say: \u2018But that\u2019s not possible.\u2019 And then I ask for a glass of water because I can\u2019t talk any more.\u201d<\/p>\n
She described later watching the videos. \u201cI\u2019m a rag doll. It\u2019s as if I\u2019ve come out of surgery, because I\u2019m completely anaesthetised. These men, when you see what they\u2019re doing to me \u2013 how is it possible that my body couldn\u2019t feel anything? \u2026 Fortunately for me, I have no memories, because I think I would have killed myself afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n
She described feeling shame and spending \u201chours in the shower trying to wash away this filth, this dirt that makes you feel dehumanised\u201d.<\/p>\nPelicot also talked about specific incidents, including a crown on one of her teeth coming loose, which she later realised was caused by oral rape.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I discovered the videos showing the violence these men inflicted on me, in my limp mouth \u2013 they have to hold my head because my face is falling, I have no muscle tone \u2013 and Monsieur Pelicot doesn\u2019t even react. There is no empathy, no pity for this woman who is there, completely dead in her bed. It was incredibly violent to tell myself that even that, they didn\u2019t spare me.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the trial, Pelicot waived her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse. \u201cThe shame is theirs,\u201d she famously stated of her abusers \u2013 and became a global feminist icon, leaving court each day to applause from gathered crowds.<\/p>\n
Support poured in from high-profile people, including the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who thanked her for her \u201cdignity and courage\u201d, and Queen Camilla of the UK.<\/p>\n
In a letter, Camilla wrote to express her \u201cheartfelt admiration for the courage, grace and dignity with which you have faced the horrific crimes committed against you\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking to BBC Newsnight at the weekend, Pelicot said: \u201cI felt moved and very honoured that she had become aware of what had happened to me. I am grateful to her.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gis\u00e8le Pelicot has said she needs to visit prison to look her abusive ex-husband \u201cstraight in the eye\u201d after his conviction for drugging her and inviting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}