France’s infamous mass rape trial has resonated enormously in Spain, a pioneer in the fight against gender-based violence, and has highlighted the often overlooked scourge of domestic sexual violence.
A French court is expected to rule this week in the case of Dominique Pelicot, 72, who has admitted drugging his then-wife Gisele Pelicot, also 72, for nearly a decade so that he and dozens of strangers he recruited online can rape her.
“This affair has had an important resonance in Spain, because there is great sensitivity here to the issue of violence against women,” Marina Subirats, a sociologist and former director of the Women’s Institute, a government body, told AFP.
Spanish politicians have pursued successive laws to tackle gender-based violence since 1997, when 60-year-old Ana Orantes was beaten, thrown over a balcony and burned by her ex-husband, days after she discussed his violent behavior on television.
The gang rape of a teenager at Pamplona’s San Fermin Bulls Festival in 2016 and disgraced former football federation chief Luis Rubiales’ forced kiss on star player Jenni Hermoso have increased pressure on the government to act.
Spain passed the first European law specifically targeting gender-based violence in 2004, and in 2022 the country reformed its criminal code to define all non-consensual sex as rape.
“Unfortunately, I think that if these horrific cases do not happen, society will not wake up,” said Monica Ricou, a law professor at the Open University of Catalonia who specializes in gender issues.
By insisting that the hearings take place in public, Gisele Pelicot has become a feminist icon at home and abroad in women’s fight against sexual abuse.
Portraits of her signature short bob and round sunglasses were on display at a demonstration in Madrid in November to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, as has happened in other cities around the world.
The correspondent of the Spanish daily El Mundo in France, Raquel Villaecija, said that Gisele Pelicot “has managed to make women who have been sexually abused or raped, the victims, a little less ashamed”.
– ‘Hidden violence’ –
The trial in France has lifted the veil on another form of gender-based violence taking place in the home, said Isabel Valdes, a journalist at the best-selling Spanish daily El Pais, who focuses on gender issues.
“We understand violence in the streets, we understand sexual violence that comes from power, but violence in the private domain of the home… that is the most hidden violence of all,” she said.
The case sparked a search for popular Spanish actor and director Paco Leon, who apologized earlier this year for the light-hearted portrayal in his 2016 comedy “Kiki, Love to Love” of a couple whose husband gives his wife drugs to have sex with have her.
“Six, eight years ago we didn’t have this sensitivity on this subject, and I didn’t have it either,” he wrote in an Instagram post that attracted hundreds of comments.
“We all need to look in the mirror because I believe it’s not just the monsters who are drugging women, but we’re all participating in this rape culture.”
Valdes said the case “will indeed leave a mark because everything checks out.”
“All the women coming forward, and all the cases that we know of, is what ultimately gives the viability of the movement to show what it means, what it entails, and how many women are affected by this kind of violence,” she said.
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