Gisèle Pelicot, a French woman whose harrowing experience became a landmark case in the fight against sexual violence, has courageously shared her story through her newly released memoir. Her husband was infamously convicted of orchestrating for numerous men to violate her while she was unconscious, a shocking revelation that stunned the world.
The memoir, titled “A Hymn to Life” and released on Tuesday, revisits the traumatic events of the 2024 mass-rape case. This case not only placed Pelicot, now 73, at the forefront of global discussions on sexual violence but also catalyzed significant changes in France’s rape legislation.
In a bold move to surrender her anonymity, Pelicot explains her motivations: “No one would ever know what they had done to me… No one beyond those involved in the trial would see their faces, look them up and down, and wonder how to pick out the rapists among their neighbours and colleagues.” It was a decision driven by a desire for transparency and accountability.
‘Hell and back’
The memoir also delves into the heart-wrenching moment Pelicot discovered the betrayal and abuse by her husband. Initially, police had questioned if she and her husband participated in swinging. When she denied it, the truth was laid bare through images showing her unconscious in bed with strangers.
In a chilling recount, Pelicot writes, “The officer says a number. He tells me fifty-three men had come to my house to rape me.” Her story is a testament to resilience and the pursuit of justice, bringing to light the hidden realities of sexual violence.
“The officer says a number. He tells me fifty-three men had come to my house to rape me,” the memoir reads.
She then recounts how she went home and hung out her husband’s washing. “I was like a dog waiting by the garden gate for its master,” she wrote.
She also describes the difficult task of telling friends and, especially, her children, and how she was aware that her daughter Caroline was about to “go through hell and back.”
In addition to her now ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, 50 men were convicted of raping Gisèle Pelicot.
‘Faith in people … is my revenge’
During the trial, Gisèle Pelicot never directly addressed Dominique Pelicot but she wrote that she planned to visit him in prison to seek answers.
“Did you ever think, ‘I must stop’? Did you abuse our daughter? Did you commit the most abject crime of all? Do you have any idea of the hell we’re living in? … Did you kill? … I’ll ask him all these questions. I need answers; he owes me that much.”
Pelicot says she has drawn strength from the thousands of letters she has received from women around the world and from the women waiting outside the courtroom.
“Not long after the trial began, I started to be presented with a bundle of correspondence at the end of each day … I preferred to read their letters rather than the newspapers; they gave me the chance to listen to women’s voices,” she wrote.
“How could I tell the women … that their presence outside the courtroom eased for me what was happening inside.”
In her book, Pelicot also describes how she found love again with a man she met through mutual friends.
The evening she met him, she recalled in the book she “was light-headed with happiness.”
“I needed to love again. I wasn’t afraid. … I still have faith in people. Once, that was my greatest weakness. Now it is my strength. My revenge.”
