She has been hailed as a feminist hero across France, commended for her courage at rallies across the country and applauded by supporters each time she enters or leaves the courtroom in the southern city of Avignon.
But the tributes to Gisèle Pelicot – the woman at the centre of a horrifying mass rape trial that has shaken France to its core – also come from far beyond the country’s borders. Since the trial began in September, solidarity has been expressed around the world, hinting at the role she has played in galvanising a global conversation around sexual violence.
From Australia to Austria, many have closely tracked the news emerging from the courtroom in Provence, where Pelicot’s ex-husband, Dominique, is accused of drugging her for nearly a decade and recruiting men to rape her while she was unconscious. Fifty other men are also on trial for alleged rape.
Dedicating her battle to all those who have survived sexual violence, Pelicot opted to allow the trial to be public and pushed for the court to exhibit the videos, recorded by her then husband, that show men engaging in intercourse with her while she was unconscious.
In Australia, 10,000 miles away, Pelicot’s bravery resonated deeply with the Older Women’s Network. For years, the organisation had been working to shine a spotlight on the sexual assault of older women; now they watched in awe as Pelicot assured survivors that they were not alone in this struggle.
“If we could be there, we would hold up placards with ‘We believe you, Gisèle’ and ‘You are our champion’ – that’s what we would write,” said Yumi Lee of the OWN.
Instead, she and the other members of the network did the next best thing they could come up with: they collected donations among themselves to send a silk scarf crafted by First Nations women to Pelicot.
“We hope that when she wears it, she knows that she has the backing and solidarity of women who are thousands of kilometres from the courtroom,” said Lee.
Similar expressions of global solidarity have arrived in Avignon, from the bouquets of flowers that have been sent to the courtroom to the dozens of letters that have poured into the local post office. Bearing postmarks from around the world, the messages, the broadcaster RMC reported, range from an Austrian man who told her that the time had come to end male domination, to an American woman who thanked her for going public with her story, adding: “You’re my hero”.
In mid-September, in an echo of the rallies held across France, hundreds of people turned up in Brussels and Liège in Belgium to show their support. Several held up placards bearing a stylised portrait of Gisèle Pelicot drawn by a Belgian artist known as Aline Dessine, who, in an act of solidarity, had renounced all rights to the image. “As long as it is used to support Gisèle Pelicot you can do whatever you want with it,” she told her 2.5 million followers on TikTok.
The rally in Brussels was organised by Balance ton bar, a nonprofit that has long battled against the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse. “It’s really beautiful to see the solidarity that has been built around Gisèle Pelicot,” said Maïté Meeûs, the organisation’s founder.
She commended Pelicot for her bravery in allowing the world a glimpse of the odyssey that many women face as they attempt to seek justice after sexual violence.
“She’s showing the world what a rape case trial can look like and how a victim really can almost never win,” she said, highlighting how, after facing a barrage of questions over her clothing and habits, Gisèle Pelicot had felt the need to remind the court that she was not the one on trial. “And she’s also showing how we really, really need to rethink the system.”
The sentiment was echoed in Greece, where 30 grassroots organisations recently penned a letter to Pelicot. “We wanted to show that we are indebted to her for her resilience and extend our heartfelt, feminist solidarity to her,” said Anna Vouyioukas of Diotima, a Greek centre for gender rights and equality. “We understand how difficult it is to endure a trial in a judicial system that is often hostile towards survivors of gender-based violence.”
At Ca la Dona, a feminist centre that has operated in Barcelona since the 1980s, the torrent of headlines emerging from the trial sent members springing into action.
“We wanted to write a letter to her,” said Natalia Camara of the organisation. “So that she knows that in Barcelona, in Catalonia, feminists are standing in solidarity with her.”
Published earlier this month, the letter thanks Pelicot for ‘breaking the silence’. Camara spoke of the group’s horror that the allegations against Pelicot’s husband came to light only after he was caught filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket, and not because any of the dozens of men he allegedly recruited to come to his house ever went to the police.
It had taken Gisèle Pelicot to shatter the silence, Camara said. “For male violence to exist, everyone who knows about it has to be silent. And what Gisèle has done is shine a light on the whole structure that sustains male violence. It’s an incredible exercise of solidarity and generosity, particularly given all that she’s lived through.”
Camara had no doubt that the impact of the trial – and the wider conversation it had launched around consent, sexual violence and the justice system – would ripple far beyond France. “She’s putting consent at the centre of everything and showing her face so that the violence and the shame changes sides,” said Camara, referencing the mantra that has electrified much of the response to the trial ever since it was used by a lawyer to describe Pelicot’s reason for going public: “Shame must change sides.”
Now the world was watching as Pelicot single-handedly recast concepts such as shame, sexual violence and consent, said Lee in Australia. “What she has done is help us to take a big step to change the status quo.”
Pelicot’s bravery had also helped to pry open a space for women around the world to address these issues, Lee added.
“She’s a champion, an absolute champion,” she said. “We hope that once the trial is over, she will be able to feel the sun on her skin and know that she is treasured by many, many women around the world.”
