Her husband is said to have drugged her so that more than 80 men could rape her. Today she faced him in court.

A woman whose husband is accused of drugging her and recruiting dozens of men online to rape her while she was unconscious gave powerful testimony against him in a French court on Thursday. She is now demanding a public reckoning for the crimes he is accused of.

Gisèle Pélicot, 72, stood before her ex-husband Dominique Pélicot and some of the 50 other men accused of raping her.

During an independent investigation in 2020, police recovered photos and videos of Pélicot’s rape on her husband’s laptop and other devices. Pélicot said she was unaware of the alleged abuse, which lasted nearly a decade, until police showed her the images.

“I only wanted one thing, and that was to disappear,” Pélicot said of that moment. The Times reported.

But now, four years after the abuse, Pélicot wants the world to know what happened to her. She opposed the prosecutor and the defendants’ lawyers’ request to hold the trial behind closed doors. The Guardian reported.

Pélicot hopes to raise awareness about date rape drugs and shift blame and shame from victims to attackers, her lawyers say.

“(She) believes she has no reason to hide,” lawyer Stéphane Babonneau said at a hearing on Monday. “No one can imagine that my client will find satisfaction in revealing what she has suffered. She wants this hearing to be public so that justice can be done in public.”

The case has attracted international media coverage, and a French reporter who drew a sketch of Pélicot in the courtroom on Thursday described her “incredible dignity and strength.”

Dominique Pélicot admitted giving his wife powerful sedatives and using a messaging website to solicit at least 80 men to rape her between 2011 and 2020, The Times reported.He made the men wait nearby until his wife passed out before letting her in, investigators said, and instructed her to undress in the kitchen. according to The Washington PostHe told them not to use cologne or tobacco, but did not require them to use condoms, he told investigators.

When asked in court earlier this week whether he was guilty of administering drugs and the assault, he replied: “Yes.” The Guardian reported.

Although Pélicot said she could not remember any of the alleged assaults, she described suffering from numerous symptoms, including unexplained fainting spells, linked to the sedatives her husband allegedly gave her. She said she visited several doctors because she believed she might have Alzheimer’s disease, The Times and The Telegraph reported, but she was never diagnosed with any illness. After her husband’s arrest, she learned she had contracted four sexually transmitted diseases.

According to the BBC, Pélicot was sexually abused about 200 times, half of them by her husband while she was unconscious.The police secured 20,000 photos and videos of the alleged rapes on a USB stick belonging to Dominique Pélicot, according to The Guardian.

The footage was discovered during a police raid on the Pélicots’ home after he was caught filming women up their skirts at a local supermarket.

Investigators said they also found nude photos of the Pélicots’ daughter, now 45, taken by her father in 2013 while she was sleeping in the family home. The Times reported.

She and her two brothers sat with their mother during the trial, which is expected to last until mid-December.

Pélicot and the other men face up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of aggravated rape.

Gisèle Pélicot said that despite her calm demeanor, she was tormented by the ordeal. The Telegraph reported.

“When people see me, they say, ‘She’s a strong woman.’ The facade looks solid, but inside it’s a pile of rubble. Everything has to be rebuilt.”

Need help? Visit RAINN’s National online hotline for sexual assault cases or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center website.

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