French rape survivor Gisele Pelicot has described the moment she fell in love and was able to trust again after her ordeal. Speaking at the Hay Festival on Saturday, Ms Pelicot said she never thought she could trust a man again before meeting her partner, Jean-Loup Agopian.
Ms Pelicot’s ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping her and allowing other men to rape her while she was unconscious, in abuse that lasted nearly a decade. The 73-year-old, who waived her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse, said shame should fall on her abusers, not her.
Speaking at the Hay Festival on Saturday, she said: “It’s something that I didn’t think, I didn’t think that could happen, especially at my age, first of all, I didn’t really want to (fall in love), but life decided otherwise. We met, our trajectories crossed at one moment and I met this young man of 73… You see, you can fall in love at any age, it happened to me, it can happen to you, I’m convinced of it. I didn’t think that I’d be able to trust a man, but it’s what happened to me, so you see that everything can be allowed in life, you must never despair.”
Ms Pelicot appeared at the Hay Festival to discuss her memoir A Hymn to Life, interviewed on stage by Baroness Helena Kennedy. Asked if she was fearful for the future of women, Ms Pelicot said: “I feel very serene about it because I think that we can all live together in harmony, men and women, and I think it’s a question of educating our children very young. Maybe I’m a very optimistic person by nature, but I would hope that the human being will go towards peace and love.”
Ms Pelicot praised her daughter Caroline Darian’s advocacy group M’endors pas, which campaigns against chemical submission. Calling her daughter to join her on stage during a standing ovation, Ms Pelicot said: “I’m really happy to share this exceptional moment with my daughter Caroline, who really fought on this. I’m really proud to be her mummy.”
