By Marc Leras
AVIGNON, France (Reuters) – Gisele Pelicot on Tuesday lambasted the cowardice of the dozens of men accused of abusing her during 10 years of mass rape organised by her husband and told the court hearing the trial France’s patriarchal society must change.
Dominique Pelicot, her husband, has admitted in court to drugging his wife, 71, and inviting strangers to their house to rape her while she was unconscious. Most of the 50 other men on trial have denied rape.
She only learnt of her ordeal when police stumbled upon videos and pictures her husband recorded of the abuse he is accused of orchestrating.
“For me this is the trial of cowardice, there is no other way to describe it,” Gisele Pelicot said, with many of the accused in the courtroom.
It is the third time she has addressed the court in Avignon, southern France, as the trial heads towards delivering its verdicts and sentences around Dec. 20.
Testimony that dozens of seemingly ordinary men, aged 26 to 74 and from all walks of life, could have raped an unconscious woman has attracted worldwide attention and turned the trial into an examination of the pervasiveness of sexual violence.
Video recorded by her husband and shown in court over the past weeks have repeatedly featured Gisele Pelicot motionless, sometimes snoring, while some of the accused abused her.
Many of the accused have told the court they did not realise they were raping her, did not intend to rape her or put all the blame on her husband, whom they said had manipulated them.
“It is time for society to look at this macho, patriarchal society and change the way it looks at rape,” Gisele Pelicot told the court.
Under French law, she could have asked for the trial to be kept behind closed doors. Instead she asked for it be held in public, saying she hoped it would help other women speak up and show that victims have nothing to be ashamed of.
“Rape is rape,” she said on Tuesday. “When you walk into a bedroom and see a motionless body, at what point (do you decide) not to react,” she said, in an address to the accused. “Why did you not leave immediately to report it to the police?”
She said she would never forgive her husband.
On Monday, the Pelicots’ two sons asked the court to punish him severely and also said they would never forgive him and that he was dead to them. Their sister said she believed Dominique Pelicot had also drugged and abused her.
Dominique Pelicot is due to address the court later on Tuesday. His lawyer Beatrice Navarro told reporters he was “very dejected”.
“He did what he did. No doubt about that. But we must still note that right now, he is very alone. He will always be very alone,” she said.
(Additional reporting by Manuel Ausloos and Juliette Jabkhiro, Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Alison Williams)
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