Her name is Giselle, and she’s 72 years old. She doesn’t fit the profile of a dynamic feminist you might suspect would, at any point in her life, have fought to expose the suffering a woman can endure.
And yet, that’s exactly what she does. In a powerful, almost silent way. She looks into the camera, behind her dark glasses, and her photo travels around the world to meet our gaze.
And it’s as if she’s standing right in front of us, compelling us to lower our eyes. Out of respect, collective shame, pain for what she’s been through, admiration…? It’s something indescribable.
The story of this woman is unimaginable to anyone with a healthy mind and soul. Married for 50 years to someone she described as a caring and kind man, she discovered—through an almost random incident—that the man with whom she had shared her life, raising three children and seven grandchildren, had been drugging her and inviting other men to rape her.
He raped her too and filmed everything, carefully archiving it. He had even drugged their daughter to photograph her naked.
The case came to light when her husband, Dominique Pelicot, was caught at a department store taking pictures up women’s skirts. Following police searches on his computers, a vast collection of material documenting his wife’s abuse was uncovered.
Both by him and dozens of other men, 50 of whom have been identified and are now facing charges for raping this woman.
“Rape is not the right word; it’s barbarity. My world collapsed; I don’t show it, but I am a wreck,” she told the court, requesting that the trial be public.
“To shift the shame onto the right camp.” She has nothing left to lose. Whereas her rapists, many of them married, professionals with social status, have much to lose.
Her first reaction, when confronted with the truth—at a police station—was to take her dog, get in her car, and disappear, to put an end to it all…
That same evening, she called her daughter. She heard her scream. “Her scream will forever be etched in my memory,” she said. Now her daughter stands by her side, as do her two sons, facing their father, condemned but determined to endure the horror.
“Crimes must be brought to light,” said Giselle. “I will endure the trial. For me, the damage is done. I’m doing it in the name of all the women who may never be recognised as victims.”