Guilty verdicts for all: What lessons from France's Mazan mass rape trial?
Guilty verdicts for all. A court in southern France has sentenced Dominique Pelicot along with the 50 co-defendants he invited over the internet into the family home to rape his drugged wife. The 72-year-old pensioner got the maximum 20 years behind bars, but his co-accused received lighter sentences than those demanded by the prosecution.
We ask what the last few months have revealed, first about the courage of ex-wife Gisèle Pelicot who opted to go public. She attended every day of the three-and-a-half month-long trial, saying shame was for her abusers – less than a third of whom expressed remorse in their closing statements.
Is the verdict a triumph for victims the world over? Or does it challenge the presumption that after #MeToo, women's rights can only progress? After all, the evidence was posted online years before police or the victim caught wind of what was playing out in the sleepy Provence village of Mazan.
Produced by Aline Bottin, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip.
