Warning: This text discusses distressing themes and sexual assault.
Gisele Pelicot, the French girl on the centre of the rape trial of her ex-husband and 50 different males, has stated she was honoured to put on a shawl despatched to her by an Australian ladies’s organisation.
“I am very honoured to put on it,” Pelicot stated on leaving the court docket in Avignon in France.
The court docket has heard how her then-husband, Dominique Pelicot, crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety treatment into her meals and invited dozens of males to rape her over a nine-year interval from 2011 to 2020 within the village of Mazan in Provence.
The Guardian reported that Stéphane Babonneau, Gisele Pelicot’s lawyer, stated: “She was very touched to obtain the headscarf and see that on the problem of violence in opposition to ladies, even in Australia on the opposite aspect of the world, ladies really feel the identical approach, and that there’s a connection that unites ladies internationally in standing up in opposition to violence in opposition to ladies, and significantly sexual violence.”
The headscarf was designed by Martu artist Mulyatingki Marney.
The artwork on the headscarf depicts a cluster of saltwater swimming pools, recognized for his or her therapeutic qualities and frequented by Martu folks to wash cuts and sores.
A number of members of The Older Ladies’s Community instructed the Guardian they collected donations amongst themselves to ship the silk scarf.
Yumi Lee of the Older Ladies’s Community instructed NITV that she and the opposite members wished to point out their solidarity with Pelicot and ship her one thing that symbolised power, resilience and resistance.
It’s symbolic of the truth that First Nations ladies have endured tons of of years of violence and struggling, together with sexual violence – and but, they persist to battle for the long run.
“We would like her to have one thing which is linked to the 60,000 years of historical past – that unbroken reference to the human spirit which we wish her to really feel nurtured by,” stated Lee.
Pelicot, who waved her anonymity and insisted on a public trial, took the stand in court docket on 23 October and instructed the court docket she desires ladies who’ve been raped to know that “it is not for us to have disgrace – it is for them.”
“I would like all ladies who’ve been raped to say: Madame Pelicot did it, I can too. I do not need them to be ashamed any longer,” she stated.
