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The French woman, who survived nearly a ten years of sexual assaults by scores of men after being incapacitated by her ex-husband, is expected to attend court in France once more this Monday. This comes after one of the men convicted of raping her launched an appeal, triggering a second trial.

Pelicot became a symbol of women's rights after choosing to forgo her right to privacy during the 2024 trial involving her ex-husband and numerous defendants. Her attorney, Antoine Camus, stated that while she would have preferred the ordeal of another trial, she will be in attendance throughout the four-day appeal at the Nîmes court in southern France.

“She will be there to explain that a rape is a rape, that there is no concept as a small rape,” Camus informed the press.

Husamettin Dogan, a 44-year-old construction worker given to nine years in prison for assaulting Pelicot, has challenged his conviction. The first trial established that Dogan reached out to her then-husband through a online forum and drove to their home the same night in June 2019, telling his own wife he was going out. He was found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was unconscious.

Dogan claimed during the first trial that he believed it was just a game. “I’m not a rapist, that’s too difficult for me to bear,” he said. His legal representative refused to comment before the appeal.

Initially, 17 of the 51 convicted men indicated they would appeal, but 16 withdrew over time, leaving only one appeal active.

Dominique Pelicot, described as one of the worst sex offenders in recent French memory, was sentenced 20 years in prison for administering drugs to his then-wife and arranging for numerous men to rape her at their home in southern France over nearly a decade of marriage.

Testimony in last year’s trial revealed that Dominique Pelicot had crushed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s mashed potato or drinks, then brought in men to assault her in the town of Mazan in the French countryside. A total of 50 other men were convicted in the case.

Now in a prison sentence in solitary confinement, Dominique Pelicot is scheduled to appear as a witness at the appeal. He is likely to repeat his earlier testimony: “I admit to being a perpetrator and all the accused men in this room are rapists.”

Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old former logistics manager, had insisted that the first trial be held in open court to raise awareness about assault under sedation. “We should not feel ashamed, it’s for them,” she stated in court.

The case generated a massive impact worldwide, with feminist organizations across the world backing Gisèle Pelicot and international figures issuing statements in her support.

However, activists and attorneys noted that the case exposed how prevalent and commonplace rape and sexual violence remains.

In a separate case, a 46-year-old man in Normandy was given 12 years in prison for raping his partner while she was asleep on several occasions in 2022. Similar to Dominique Pelicot, he first came to police attention for filming up a woman’s skirt in a supermarket, and investigators later discovered videos of the assaults on his electronic devices.

The appeal in the Pelicot case occurs amid increasing criticism of the French justice system’s handling of rape. Several damning reports since the first trial have indicated that the system continues to fail rape complainants on a significant level.

This year, the European Court of Human Rights censured France for “not safeguarding” the rights of three teenagers who disclosed rape.

One teenager who accused more than a dozen firefighters of abuse was found to have suffered “secondary victimisation and discriminatory treatment” by the French justice system, which did not act to protect her dignity “by permitting the use of judgmental and guilt-inducing statements, which propagated gender stereotypes.”

In another instance, France was found to have breached the European Convention on Human Rights in the case of a hospital pharmacist who filed a rape complaint against her supervisor.

This month, the High Council for Equality, an advisory body attached to the French prime minister’s office, found that despite a tripling in rape complaints in France since the global #MeToo movement in 2016, the number of cases proceeding to trial remains dangerously low, with only 3.3% of complaints leading to convictions.

More than 130 feminist groups are campaigning for comprehensive changes at every level of the French justice system in addressing rape, calling for enhanced financial support and improved government assistance and prevention.

“The Pelicot case was a kind of electric shock, it allowed a lot of people to talk about rape and marital rape. However, there has not really been a political response. There is a great deal missing in France, and serious dysfunction [in the justice system],” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes.

Separately, parliament is currently debating incorporating a clear legal standard of rape into French law.

Marie-Charlotte Garin, a Green MP who backs rewording the law, stated that the Pelicot case had altered French society’s understanding of consent and that updating the legal wording would help “a societal shift to move from a tolerance of assault to a culture of consent.”

However, Garin stressed that wording by itself is insufficient to address persistent “shortcomings” of the entire French state toward rape survivors. “We need a revolution in the system to improve how we handle rape,” she said.