The high-profile legal trial of Dominique Pelicot is wrapping up. The French man is accused of drugging and raping his 72-year-old spouse, Gisèle Pelicot, and likewise inviting 50 different males to rape her whereas she was unconscious.
What’s captured international consideration isn’t simply the sensational allegations within the case, however Gisèle Pelicot’s resolution to publicly seem earlier than the court docket and to talk with the media.
Pelicot has been praised as a feminist hero in France.
“I’ve decided not to be ashamed, I’ve done nothing wrong,” Pelicot advised the court docket in October 2024.
“Above all”, she mentioned that very same month, “I’m expressing my will and determination to change this society.”
Gisèle Pelicot poses in Avignon, France, in October 2024, through the trial of her former companion, who’s accused of drugging her and welcoming dozens of strangers to rape her whereas she was sedated.
Christophe Simon/AFP through Getty Photos
Utilizing their voices
Courts around the globe, together with in France, present particular measures to protect the identification and testimony of rape survivors, together with using protecting screens within the courtroom or prerecorded testimony.
However the Pelicot case and others present how some sexual assault survivors throughout the globe are rejecting these authorized protections and are selecting to disclose their names, faces and voices. Their selections don’t simply problem perpetrators – they problem the courts, rape tradition and the way in which individuals typically perceive disgrace.
As a former lawyer and a researcher on sound and voice, I research how rape survivors and their allies communicate out about sexual violence, out and in of court docket. Filmmaker Bremen Donovan and I are engaged on a documentary movie, “Big Mouth,” about girls’s testimony in opposition to sexual violence within the West African nation of Guinea.
A rape survivor in Guinea speaks out
Some facets of the Pelicot case resonate with latest occasions in Guinea, the place a rape survivor named Fatoumata Barry selected to testify on dwell tv in a serious legal trial in 2023.
Barry’s high-profile testimony passed off in a trial in opposition to Moussa Dadis Camara, the previous president of Guinea, and his high army commanders. In 2009, Camara oversaw mass violence in opposition to pro-democracy supporters within the capital, during which Guinean troopers killed 157 individuals and raped greater than 100 girls.
A Guinean court docket discovered Camara and different leaders responsible for these crimes in July 2024.
The trial included dozens of victims and witnesses who testified. However whereas rape survivors have been allowed to testify in closed proceedings, Barry selected as a substitute to testify publicly.
Within the Guinean case, protection legal professionals in court docket repeatedly tried to disgrace Barry for showing earlier than the cameras. One lawyer accused her of “embarrassing” herself and the nation by bringing the case earlier than the media.
Barry noticed by way of this well-worn silencing tactic and mentioned on the stand that she spoke out for justice.
A ripple impact
Sexual assault survivors are sometimes deeply weak. Lots of them concern being threatened and intimidated, or publicly blamed and shamed. Authorized protections are hard-won rights that exist for a purpose, and lots of survivors proceed to want and use them. However some resolve in any other case.
Whereas the #MeToo motion began a cultural shift in 2017 around the globe by encouraging survivors to inform their tales, public testimony goes even additional, as survivors present their faces and broadcast their voices whereas underneath the evident scrutiny of a trial.
Different sexual assault survivors, together with Adji Sarr in Senegal and Nikita Hand in Eire, have additionally publicly testified in recent times.
In Senegal, Sarr has confronted demise threats since 2021, when she accused a outstanding politician, Ousmane Sonko, of assaulting her. She reaffirmed her accusations on tv a month later, and she or he and her supporters referred to as for a televised trial. Sonko was acquitted of rape in June 2023 however was discovered responsible of “corrupting youth” for having had a sexual relationship with Sarr earlier than she turned 21.
‘Shame must change sides’
There are clear ramifications for Barry, Gisèle Pelicot and others who select to step ahead to publicly talk about their abuse in a courtroom.
Their non-public lives and histories are dissected as proof. They’re cross-examined by protection legal professionals decided to undermine them.
And they’re uncovered to criticisms and additional violations. Barry was attacked by the protection and by nameless individuals on-line as “crazy” and “dangerous,” whereas Pelicot admitted that publicity was a troublesome resolution for her as a result of it left her feeling violated.
Public commentators and the media typically describe rape as an “unspeakable” act.
By creating privateness protections to mediate or shut off testimony, the courts could – inadvertently or not – reinforce silence by assuming that it’s victims, and never perpetrators, who can be shamed.
Like Gisèle Pelicot, Barry and her allies, together with the Guinean girls’s rights activist Hadja Idrissa Bah, have mentioned as a substitute that “shame must change sides.”