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The French woman, who endured nearly a decade of rapes by scores of men after being drugged by her former spouse, is set to appear court in France once more this Monday. This comes after one of the men found guilty of raping her filed an appeal, leading to a second trial.

Pelicot became a symbol of women's rights after choosing to forgo her anonymity during the legal proceedings involving her ex-husband and 50 other men. Her attorney, Antoine Camus, stated that while she would have rather avoided the stress of another trial, she will be present throughout the four-day appeal at the Nîmes court in the south of France.

“Her presence is essential to make clear that a rape is a rape, that there is no such thing as a small rape,” Camus told reporters.

Husamettin Dogan, a 44-year-old construction worker given to nine years in prison for raping Pelicot, has appealed his conviction. The first trial established that Dogan contacted her then-husband through a chatroom and traveled to their home the same night in June 2019, informing his own wife he was leaving. He was found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was unconscious.

Dogan asserted during the first trial that he believed it was a form of role-play. “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 signaled they would appeal, but 16 withdrew over time, leaving only one appeal proceeding.

Dominique Pelicot, described as one of the most notorious sex offenders in recent French memory, was handed 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 many years of marriage.

Testimony in last year’s trial disclosed that Dominique Pelicot had crushed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s mashed potato or drinks, then invited men to assault her in the town of Mazan in south-east France. A total of 50 other men were found guilty in the case.

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

Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old former supply chain professional, had demanded that the first trial be held in open court to raise awareness about drug-induced rape. “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them,” she stated in court.

The case generated a massive effect worldwide, with feminist organizations across all continents backing Gisèle Pelicot and international figures releasing statements in her support.

However, activists and attorneys noted that the case exposed how prevalent and frequent 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 multiple instances in 2022. Similar to Dominique Pelicot, he first came to police attention for recording up a woman’s skirt in a supermarket, and investigators later discovered videos of the assaults on his digital equipment.

The appeal in the Pelicot case occurs amid growing 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 condemned 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 failed 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 violated 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 associated with the French prime minister’s office, reported 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 resulting in convictions.

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

“The Pelicot case was a kind of electric shock, it enabled 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 lacking in France, and serious dysfunction [in the justice system],” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes.

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

Marie-Charlotte Garin, a Green MP who supports 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 emphasized 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 deal with rape,” she said.