‘I am a rapist,’ admits former husband who invited dozens of men to rape Gisèle Pélicot
WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
A 71-year-old French man acknowledged in court on Tuesday that over nearly a decade, he was drugging his then-wife and inviting dozens of men to rape her, as well as raping her himself. He pleaded with her, and their three children, for forgiveness.
“Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,″ Dominique Pélicot told the court. “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”
Dominique Pélicot’s testimony is the most important moment so far in a trial that has shocked and gripped France, and raised new awareness about sexual violence.
While he previously confessed to investigators, the court testimony will be crucial for the panel of judges to decide on the fate of some 50 other men standing trial alongside him. Many deny having raped Gisèle Pélicot, saying they were manipulated by her then-husband or claiming they believed she was consenting.
Gisèle Pélicot has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France for agreeing to waive her anonymity in the case, letting the trial be public and appearing openly in front of the media. She is expected to speak in court after her ex-husband’s testimony on Tuesday.
Under French law, the proceedings inside the courtroom cannot be filmed or photographed. Dominique Pélicot is brought to the court through a special entrance inaccessible for the media, because he and some other defendants are being held in custody during the trial. Defendants who are not in custody come to the trial wearing surgical masks or hoods to avoid having their faces filmed or photographed.
After days of uncertainty due to his medical state, Dominique Pélicot appeared in court Tuesday and told judges he acknowledged all the charges against him.
His much-awaited testimony was delayed by days after he fell ill, suffering from a kidney stone and urinary infection, his lawyers said.
‘One is not born a pervert’
Seated in a wheelchair, Pélicot spoke to the court for an hour, from his early life to years of abuse against his now ex-wife. Expressing remorse, his voice trembling and at times barely audible, he sought to explain events that he said scarred his childhood and planted the seed of vice in him.
“One is not born a pervert, one becomes a pervert,” Pélicot told judges, after recounting, sometimes in tears, being raped by a male nurse in hospital when he was nine years old and then being forced to take part in a gang rape at age 14.
Pélicot also spoke of the trauma endured when his parents took a young girl in the family, and witnessing his father’s inappropriate behaviour toward her.
“My father used to do the same thing with the little girl,” he said. “After my father’s death, my brother said that men used to come to our house.”
Crowds took to the streets in France over the weekend to show support for Gisèle Pélicot, whose husband is accused of drugging her and allowing strangers to rape her over several years.
At 14, he said, he asked his mother if he could leave the house, but “she didn’t let me.”
“I don’t really want to talk about this, I am just ashamed of my father. In the end, I didn’t do any better,” he said.
Asked about his feelings toward his wife, Pélicot said she did not deserve what he did. “From my youth, I remember only shocks and traumas, forgotten partly thanks to her. She did not deserve this, I acknowledge it,” he said in tears.
At that moment, Gisèle Pélicot, standing across the room, facing him across a group of dozens of defendants sitting in between them, put her sunglasses back on. Later, Dominique Pélicot said, “I was crazy about her. She replaced everything. I ruined everything.”
50 other men standing trial
A security agent caught Pélicot in 2020 filming videos under women’s skirts in a supermarket, according to court documents. Police searched Pélicot’s house and electronic devices, and found thousands of photos and videos of men engaging in sexual acts with Gisèle Pélicot while she appears to lie unconscious on their bed.
With the recordings, police were able to track down a majority of the 72 suspects they were seeking.
Gisèle Pélicot and her husband of 50 years had three children. When they retired, the couple left the Paris region to move into a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence.
When police officers called her in for questioning in late 2020, she initially told them her husband was “a great guy,″ according to legal documents. They then showed her some photos. She left her husband and they are now divorced.
He faces 20 years in prison if convicted. Besides Pélicot, 50 other men, aged 26 to 74, are standing trial.
Bernadette Tessonière, a 69-year-old retiree who lives a half-hour drive from Avignon, where the trial is taking place, arrived outside the courthouse at 7:15 a.m. local time to make sure she would secure a seat in the closely watched case.
“How is it possible that in 50 years of communal life, one can live next to someone who hides his life so well? This is scary,” she said, while standing in a line outside the courthouse. “I don’t have much hope that what he did can be explained, but he is at least going to give some elements.”
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
For anyone affected by family or intimate partner violence, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services.
If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.
Published at Tue, 17 Sep 2024 13:24:19 +0000
Instagram rolls out teen accounts, other privacy changes designed to protect those under 18
Instagram is introducing separate teen accounts for those under 18 as it tries to make the platform safer for children amid a growing backlash against how social media affects young people’s lives.
Beginning Tuesday in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, anyone under under 18 who signs up for Instagram will be placed into a teen account and those with existing accounts will be migrated over the next 60 days. Teens in the European Union will see their accounts adjusted later this year.
Meta Platforms Inc. acknowledges that teenagers may lie about their age and says it will require them to verify their ages in more instances, like if they try to create a new account with an adult birthday. The Menlo Park, Calif., company also said it is building technology that proactively finds teen accounts that pretend to be grownups and automatically places them into the restricted teen accounts.
The teen accounts will be private by default. Private messages are restricted so teens can only receive them from people they follow or are already connected to. Content deemed “sensitive,” such as videos of people fighting or those promoting cosmetic procedures, will be limited, Meta said.
Teens will also get notifications if they are on Instagram for more than 60 minutes and a “sleep mode” will be enabled that turns off notifications and sends auto-replies to direct messages from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m.
Addressing 3 concerns based on feedback
While these settings will be turned on for all teens, 16- and 17-year-olds will be able to turn them off. Kids under 16 will need their parents’ permission to do so.
“The three concerns we’re hearing from parents are that their teens are seeing content that they don’t want to see or that they’re getting contacted by people they don’t want to be contacted by or that they’re spending too much on the app,” said Naomi Gleit, head of product at Meta. “So teen accounts is really focused on addressing those three concerns.”
In the past, Meta’s efforts at addressing teen safety and mental health on its platforms have been met with criticism that the changes don’t go far enough. For instance, while kids will get a notification when they’ve spent 60 minutes on the app, they will be able to bypass it and continue scrolling.
LISTEN l Teens, digital rights activist Zamaan Qureshi on social media challenges:
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That’s unless the child’s parents turn on “parental supervision” mode, where parents can limit teens’ time on Instagram to a specific amount of time, such as 15 minutes.
With the latest changes, Meta is giving parents more options to oversee their kids’ accounts. Those under 16 will need a parent or guardian’s permission to change their settings to less restrictive ones. They can do this by setting up “parental supervision” on their accounts and connecting them to a parent or guardian.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said last week that parents don’t use the parental controls the company has introduced in recent years.
Facing lawsuits across North America
Up to 95 per cent of youth from the ages of 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said last year that tech companies put too much on parents when it comes to keeping children safe on social media.
“We’re asking parents to manage a technology that’s rapidly evolving that fundamentally changes how their kids think about themselves, how they build friendships, how they experience the world — and technology, by the way, that prior generations never had to manage,” Murthy said in May 2023.
Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri told ABC’s Good Morning America on Tuesday the new changes don’t involve a burdensome requirement for parents.
“We’ve really decided that parents should be our north star,” he said. “They’ve been clear in what they’re most concerned about and we’re trying to proactively address those concerns, without requiring their involvement. But if a parent wants to get involved, we’ve also built some robust tools to allow them to shape the experience into what’s most appropriate for their teen.”
Meta faces lawsuits from dozens of U.S. states that accuse it of harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms.
WATCH l Social media companies deny school board suit allegations:
Four Ontario school boards are suing the makers of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok for $4.5 billion, alleging the way they designed their apps has negatively rewired the way children think, behave and learn while disrupting their education.
Several Ontario school boards also announced lawsuits this year seeking billions from Meta, Snap Inc. and ByteDance Ltd., which operate the platforms Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, respectively. The boards allege the social media companies “have knowingly and/or negligently disrupted and fundamentally changed the school, learning and teaching climate by creating and sustaining prolific and/or compulsive use of their products by students.”
The claims have not been tested in court.
Top social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, allow users who are 13 years of age and above to sign up.
Published at Tue, 17 Sep 2024 13:28:18 +0000
