Sexual abuse survivor Gisèle Pelicot is hailed as a national icon in France for her courage in court during the “Mazan rapes” case.
A online petitionpublished last Wednesday, proposes that Gisèle Pelicot receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
The latter became known around the world for standing up to her ex-husband and dozens of other attackers duringa gang rape trial that stunned France and made her a feminist icon.
The petition has already collected nearly 90,000 signatures in less than a week.
“No one deserves the Nobel Prize more than Gisèle Pelicot”says Catherine Mayer, a British journalist behind the petition.
For almost ten years, Dominique Pelicot, Gisèle Pelicot’s former husband, administered sedatives to her and raped her while she was unconscious, inviting men recruited online to do the same without her knowledge or consent.
At the beginning of January, the founder of the website used by Dominique Pelicot to find these men and get in touch with them was arrested.
Gisèle Pelicot has attracted the attention of French and international media and women’s rights groups around the world thanks to the frankness and courage she demonstrated during the three-month trial against her ex-husband and 50 other men, after waiving her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse.
The evidence of the case, including the videos filmed by her ex-husband, was thus heard in public court, *Gisèle Pelicot affirming that “the shame should fall on his attackers”and not on her*.
“Gisèle Pelicot managed to break through the fog of disinformation by lifting her anonymity to attend the trial of her attackers and testify”says Catherine Mayer.
“We share the same fight”
The court in Avignon, in the south of the country, recognized Dominique Pelicot guilty of rape and all other charges against him in December, and sentenced him to 20 years in prisonthe maximum sentence possible in France.
The other 50 men found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot were sentenced to sentences ranging from three to fifteen years in prison.
After the sentencing, Gisèle Pelicot sent a message of hope.
“I want you to know that we share the same fight. When I opened the doors of this trial, I wanted society to witness the debates that took place here”she said.
“I now have confidence in our ability to find a better future where everyone, women and men, can live in harmony, respect and mutual understanding”.
Gisèle Pelicot was named French Personality of the Year in an opinion poll carried out in France in 2024ahead of world leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky.
In 2018, the Nobel Peace Prize committee awarded a joint prize for the fight against sexual violence to Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege and Yazidi activist Nadia Murad.
The Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo – a grassroots movement of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs – received the prize in 2024.