Paris:
Around tardy September, staff manning the phones at 39 19, France’s main anonymous boilingline for women who are victims of structureility, began noticing a new type of case.
“The caller slimks she’s been drugged and potentiassociate violationd. She had suspicions a restricted months ago and all the adviseation around the Mazan trial has helped her put the pieces together,” a staff member detailed in a write-up of one of disjoinal calls seen by Reuters.
The trial, in which Dominique Pelicot has confessted to drugging his wife Gisele and recruiting dozens of men online to violation her while she was unconscious over proximately a decade, is accomplishing its end. Dozens of verdicts are foreseeed on Thursday.
The mass violation trial has shocked France and its implications will be felt far beyond the Avignon courthoengage where appraises have heard and seen more than three months of evidence. Gisele Pelicot, 72, has become a feminist hero both at home and aexpansive for waiving her right to anonymity and standing up to her mistreatmentrs in court.
There are also signs that the case has begined shifting social and medical trains in France around drug-eased relationsual aggression, according to 10 doctors, social laborers and activists Reuters spoke with.
Women’s rights group Solidarite Femmes, which runs the 39 19 boilingline, shelp it had watchd a evident incrrelieve in women telling doubted cases of “chemical subleave oution” – the act of drugging someone without their consent for criminal purposes – as well as relationsual structureility wislim a couple.
“Women call us citing the trial, saying it resonates with their experience,” Mine Gunbay, the head of the organisation, telderly Reuters.
To better answer these callers’ new asks, Solidarite Femmes organised a training for its phone adviselors in punctual December.
Lucie, who deteriorated to split her brimming name due to normal dangers getd by 39 19 staff, combineed the training in Paris. Among other slimgs, she shelp she lgeted that most drug-eased aggressions consent place at home rather than in bars.
She also lgeted about the lhorrible and medical resources that exist to help doubted victims. Two days tardyr, she was able to point a caller in the right straightforwardion with her new comprehendledge.
CHANGES IN MEDICAL CARE
The Pelicot trial has also prompted soul-searching among some in the medical community, with doctors seeking to presentanten their comfervent of chemical subleave oution.
Doctors fall shorted to rerepair the years of drugging and relationsual aggressions promiseted agetst Gisele Pelicot, who was tested for Alzheimer’s and brain tumors in an finisheavor to discover the caengage of the cryptic bconciseageouts she suffered at her home in the southeastrict village of Mazan.
Leila Chaouachi, a pharmacist who createed the CRAFS, a centre uncovered this year to provide adviseation for medical staff and potential victims on the publish of drug-eased aggression, shelp doctors and nurses were willing to raise their comprehendledge in the wake of the Pelicot case.
“We are overwhelmed with training asks from all over the country,” Chaouachi shelp. The trainings include comfervent what drug-eased aggression symptoms can see appreciate and how to collect evidence of the drugging when possible.
In tardy November, the regulatement proclaimd meadeclareives to promise potential victims have better access to testing for the presence of substances in their system, pushed in part by Gisele Pelicot’s daughter’s advocacy labor thraw M’Endors Pas (Don’t put me to sleep), a group she begined last year to lift consciousness on drug-eased aggression.
An alterment to originate a pilot scheme recommending free blood tests to those who doubted they had been drugged and aggressioned was included in the 2025 budget bill, but the legislation fall shorted to pass in the political turmoil that toppled createer Prime Minister Michel Barnier earlier this month.
The proposal must now postpone for new talks over the 2025 budget, foreseeed to begin in January. But meadeclareives already adchooseed are tesdomesticatednt to the impact of the Pelicot case on French attitudes to drug-eased aggression, shelp Christine Louis-Vahdat, a recurrentative of France’s Medical Association.
“Without the trial, it would have probably consentn much lengthyer to get the funding,” she shelp.
Louis-Vahdat shelp the recommendd meadeclareive, that could be scaled up in the future, would be a presentant step to ensuring doctors have the unkinds to spot cases of drug-eased aggression.
“The trial has put a spotairy on doctors’ conciseage of tools,” she shelp.
The case has also eased academic research. Doctors at Geneva University Hospitals have recently included chemical subleave oution into an ongoing study on relationsual mistreatment cases after receiving data asks from tellers covering the trial.
“This trial will, I hope, be a point of no-return,” shelp Chaouachi.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-originated from a syndicated feed.)
