Towards the end of September, the staff manning the telephones of 39 19, France’s main anonymous telephone line for women victims of violence, began to notice a new type of cases.
“The caller thinks she was drugged and potentially raped. She had suspicions a few months ago and all the information about the Mazan trial helped her put the pieces together,” a staff member explained in a report of one of several calls seen by Reuters.
The trial, in which Dominique Pelicot admitted to drugging his wife Gisele and recruiting dozens of men online to rape her while she was unconscious for nearly a decade, is nearing its end. Dozens of sentences are expected on Thursday.
The mass rape trial has shocked France and its implications will be felt far beyond the court in Avignon, where judges heard and saw more than three months of evidence. Gisele Pelicot, 72, has become a feminist hero at home and abroad for waiving her right to anonymity and facing her abusers in court.
According to 10 doctors, social workers and activists Reuters spoke to, the case has begun to change social and medical practices in France regarding drug-facilitated sexual violence.
Women’s rights group Solidarite Femmes, which runs the 39 19 hotline, said it had noticed a clear increase in women reporting suspected cases of “chemical submission” – the act of drugging someone without their consent for criminal purposes – and sexual violence within a couple.
“Women call us citing the process, saying it matches their experience,” Mine Gunbay, head of the organisation, told Reuters.
To better respond to new questions from callers, Solidarite Femmes organized training for its telephone consultants at the beginning of December.
Lucie, who declined to share her full name due to threats she regularly receives from 39 19 staff, attended the training in Paris. Among other things, he said he learned that most drug-induced assaults occur at home rather than in bars.
He also learned about the legal and medical resources that exist to help suspected victims. Two days later, thanks to her newfound knowledge, she was able to point a caller in the right direction.
CHANGES IN MEDICAL CARE
The Pelicot trial has also spurred some soul-searching among some members of the medical community, with doctors seeking to deepen their understanding of chemical subjugation.
Doctors have failed to identify the years of drug and sexual abuse committed against Gisele Pelicot, who has been tested for Alzheimer’s and brain tumors in a bid to find the cause of the mysterious blackouts she suffered in her home in the south-eastern village of Mazan.
Leila Chaouachi, a pharmacist who founded CRAFS, a center opened this year to provide information to medical staff and potential victims on the topic of drug-facilitated assaults, said doctors and nurses were keen to improve their knowledge in the wake of the Pelicot case.
“We are inundated with training requests from all over the country,” Chaouachi said. Training courses include understanding the symptoms of a drug-facilitated assault and how to collect evidence of drug administration when possible.
In late November, the Government announced measures to give potential victims better access to tests to check for drugs in the body, prompted in part by the advocacy work of Gisele Pelicot’s daughter through M’Endors Pas (Don’t Fall Asleep). , a group he launched last year to raise awareness about drug-facilitated aggression.
An amendment to create a pilot program offering free blood tests to those suspected of having been drugged and assaulted was included in the 2025 budget bill, but the legislation failed to pass during the political turmoil that toppled the former Prime Minister Michel Barnier earlier this month.
The proposal must now await new 2025 budget talks, which are expected to begin in January. But the measures already adopted testify to the impact of the Pelicot case on the attitude of the French towards aggression caused by drugs, said Christine Louis-Vahdat, representative of the French Medical Association.
“Without the process, it probably would have taken a lot longer to get the funding,” he said.
Louis-Vahdat said the proposed measure, which could be expanded in the future, would be a key step in ensuring that doctors have the means to spot cases of drug-facilitated assault.
“The trial put a spotlight on doctors’ lack of tools,” he said.
The case has also inspired academic research. Doctors at Geneva University Hospitals recently incorporated the chemical presentation into an ongoing study of sexual abuse cases, after receiving requests for data from journalists covering the trial.
“This trial, I hope, will be a point of no return,” Chaouachi said.
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