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The French woman, who survived nearly a ten years of sexual assaults by dozens of men after being drugged by her ex-husband, is expected to attend court in France once more this Monday. This comes after one of the men found guilty of raping her filed an appeal, triggering a new hearing.

Pelicot became a symbol of women's rights after opting to waive her right to privacy 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 in attendance throughout the four-day appeal at the Nîmes court in southern France.

“She will be there 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 initial trial established that Dogan reached out to her then-husband through a chatroom and drove to their home the same night in June 2019, telling his own wife he was leaving. 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 heavy for me to accept,” he said. His legal representative refused to comment before the appeal.

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

Dominique Pelicot, described as one of the most notorious sex offenders in recent French memory, was handed 20 years in prison for drugging his then-wife and arranging for multiple men to rape her at their home in southern France over many years of marriage.

Testimony in last year’s trial revealed that Dominique Pelicot had mixed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s food or drinks, then invited men to assault her in the village of Mazan in the French countryside. A total of 50 other men were found guilty in the case.

Now in a prison sentence in isolation, Dominique Pelicot is scheduled to appear as a witness at the appeal. He is expected to repeat his previous 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. “We should not feel ashamed, it’s for them,” she stated in court.

The case generated a significant impact globally, with feminist organizations across the world backing Gisèle Pelicot and world leaders releasing statements in her support.

However, campaigners and lawyers noted that the case exposed how widespread and frequent rape and sexual violence remains.

In a recent case, a 46-year-old man in Normandy was given 12 years in prison for raping his partner while she was unconscious on multiple instances 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 digital equipment.

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

This year, the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for “failing to protect” the rights of three teenagers who reported rape.

One teenager who accused several 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 allowing the use of moralising and guilt-inducing statements, which reinforced 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 associated with the French prime minister’s office, reported that despite a threefold increase in rape complaints in France since the global #MeToo movement in 2016, the number of cases reaching court 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 major funding increases and improved state support and prevention.

“The Pelicot case was a form of electric shock, it enabled a lot of people to talk about rape and marital rape. However, there has not really been a government action. There is a great deal lacking in France, and major flaws [in the justice system],” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes.

Separately, parliament is currently debating incorporating a consent-based definition 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 changing the legal wording would help “a societal shift to move from a culture of rape to a culture of consent.”

However, Garin emphasized that wording alone is insufficient to address persistent “failures” of the entire French state toward rape survivors. “We need a overhaul in the system to improve how we deal with rape,” she said.