Episode 08: The Trial That Changed Everything with Gayanjalee

Foreign. Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Matriarchal Voices, the podcast of the Matriarchy Times. Today I have with me Kayanjali Di Silva. She's our head author of the Matriarchy Times. She's one who curates all the articles and she's one who brings you all the excellent written work that we do. Hi, Ganjali. Hi. So how is everyone doing today? We thought about, since it's in the news and a lot of people have been following it, we thought about talking about Jizzel Pelicut. If you have not heard this name, you're very lucky. But for those that know who she is, you know that she's a 71 year old lady who has just been through one of the worst ordeals that a human being can go through. So Giselle Pellicott was a victim of rape. And I know that there's a lot of people who don't really understand the concept of being a victim, who like victim shaming. Rape is a taboo topic and nobody wants to be associated with it. But she has been brave enough to allow her court case to be, how do you say it, Heard publicly so that everyone knows what happened behind the scenes, everyone knows what the case is about and everyone can learn where all these problems in the world are coming from right now. So I'll start by telling you how they met. They met when they were 19 years old. Giselle was in love with her husband Dominic, but she was not aware that he had committed an attempted sexual assault in 1999 with a real estate agent in Paris. So as soon as she found this out, and she also found out that he was covertly trying to take pictures of his daughter in law while she was undressed and pregnant, she decided that it's no longer possible for people to stay silent while victims get blamed while rapists walk free. And while rapists are celebrated in certain circles, she decided to show people that there is. She wanted to shift the shame. Basically that was the whole theme behind her holding her court case publicly. She wanted the shame to shift from the rapist from the person who underwent the rape to the rapist. So it was really a sad incident. If you don't know the details about it, I'll tell it to you right now. So he was caught in a shopping mall trying to take pictures of women's, well, upskirt they call it, where he was trying to attempting to take pictures of women under their skirts. And he was arrested for that. And while they were going through his phone and his files I found that he had 20,000 photos and videos of a total of 71 men raping one woman. And this woman was unconscious in all the videos and her name was Giselle. And this was his wife, the mother of his children. And she was married to him. And this has been going on for 10 years. So there was a chat room called Coco and Khoko was used by the husband to invite men to come and rape his wife while she was drugged and unconscious. So the way he orchestrated this was he used to be portray himself as a loving husband. Giselle, of course, was really in love with her husband. She didn't suspect anything. She thought that he was being a loving husband because he was preparing dinner for her every night and making her favorite drink. So what he was doing was he was drugging her with the food and the drink. So she just went to sleep. She didn't know what was happening. She woke up the next day feeling tired and she didn't know why. She just thought maybe she was did a little bit too much the previous day and she didn't feel fully rested. But she had no idea what was happening. The husband had strict instructions for the people who had to come in. They could not smoke, they could not wear any perfume so that she won't suspect anything, no smell, nothing left behind. They had to undress in the kitchen so. And leave all their clothes in one place so that nothing gets left behind. He was, he had planned this like really well. And if you think about the reason that he was doing this, the reason behind all this planning and all this executing and allowing strange men to come and rape your wife who had agreed to do it while he was taking pictures and taking videos. So you can just imagine their mentality. All this was just for his pleasure. He got nothing out of it. He didn't sell the videos, he didn't sell the photos. He didn't make money off it. He just wanted it to happen. And he was just standing by and watching. So what do you think he was hoping to gain from all this? Like, did he think he would never get caught? Was he hoping to get caught? Was he planning on doing something with these videos in future? Perhaps starting his own adult website featuring, kind of featuring rape as the main selling point? We may never know. But what we do know is he got sentenced to only 20 years in prison after subjecting his wife to all this humiliation for 10 years. He just has to sit inside prison for 20 knowing that he is a bit advanced in age. I don't think that he will be able to do anything when he comes out. But still, I think a life imprisonment would have been more suitable on this occasion. So, Ganjali, what do you think about this whole thing?

I keep coming Back to this. 20 years in prison for him and sentences ranging from 3 to 15 years for others. Is that really justice? I mean, think about it. She. She lived through this horror for over a decade. Her own husband violated her and then allowed doses of men to do the same. And it's horrifying to even imagine. And yet these sentences feel almost trivial in comparison to the depth of the trauma she has endured. It's as if the world is saying, here's a slap on the wrist now, let's move on, right? So, but how can anyone from something like that.

I don't think anyone can really move on from something like this. I mean, this is just one story. We don't know. Like there are countries that don't even have laws to support women, even if they come forward. So this is just the tip of the iceberg, the proverbial iceberg. I think we should actually think about the fact that this is still, this still exists with all the power that we have right now with social media, with the Internet, with even television. I mean, people who don't have the Internet at least have a television. I mean, I know in our country there are poor houses, like houses that look a bit dilapidated, and these people are, you know, living on the rural side of life, but they still have a television, they still have mobile phones. So actually there is a possibility to spread the right message, which is not happening. And the reason this is not happening is because there are people who are still gaining something out of this. Now, for example, like I said, Giselle's husband may have not sold any of his media that he collected, but there are people who make money off this. For example, I know for a fact that about 90% of the pornography industry is trafficked. People are young girls are stolen from their homes, from their countries. People who have no option, who come desperate for a way to live and they're just put into sex work and pornography and they don't have a choice. They have no way out because the system doesn't support people enough to get on their feet without resorting to something like this. So that's another whole story. But while we're on J. This happened in 2020 and so it's been four years. The results just came out. Everyone who was found in the videos was not caught, I'm assuming. I don't know. I Couldn't find anything to support it. But there are. There is an evidence to say that 71 people were involved in this, but only 51 were at the child. So there are still roughly 20 people out there who have not had to face this trial. And the sad thing about that whole situation is that they are not sad about what they did. They're just happy that they didn't get caught. Like, there is nothing to say that they would not do it again if they were given a chance. They got away with it once. And how do we know how many people have seen this and thought, oh, my God, that's a good idea. That sounds like fun. Let me do that. And especially in a country that won't, that there would be legal action taken against it. So Jesus message. I'm just reading this. She says that she and other victims of sexual crimes have no reason to feel ashamed. And I think what she says is true because we have been taught shame. Shame is something that we are taught. We don't feel shame naturally. For example, we are taught that we can't dress in a certain way, so we feel shame when we see someone dressed like that. So it's just something we are taught. So everything in society has been taught at some point or another. And we have to change the way that things are being taught in order to have a real lasting change. So instead of punishing people for the crime, I think it should be more of a reforming kind of situation where we actually get to the root of the crime and get rid of it. Because if we. Like you said, if someone has been only sentenced to three years, like, if they are not being reformed, if they're just being punished, they'll just sit it out and wait until they can get a chance to take out and get back to whatever they were doing. So there is actually no system in place. There is a system in place for reforming people who are addicted to drugs. But rapists are just punished. Rapists who are reported are just punished. Rapists who are caught are punished. But there are rapists who are caught and let go. We know that. And so that's the sad situation. I'm happy about Giselle at her age at 71, after she went through this for 10 years, it's. She says that she even visited doctors because she was feeling dizzy. She thought she was forgetting things. She thought she was having Alzheimer's. She went to doctors to get treatment for all these things. And it was just this. This is what was happening. And her husband was probably sitting back and watching her like, go to the doctors, try to get medicine, try to find out what was wrong with her. She loved him. She was probably talking to him about it. He was probably telling him, trusting him, you know, I feel so bad. I feel like this. And he was probably, oh, let me make you feel better. And probably giving him more food or drink with drugs in it. And then getting someone over like, this is the kind of sick mentality that this man has been having with this woman. And she met him when she was only 19 years old. She's 71 now. She has known him almost her whole life. I mean, people's lives begin at 15, 16, 18. And when we're children, like, our world is idyllic. So life as with problems and with life with all its difficulties, actually starts after we reach 18, 19. So she met him when she was starting to face life. So she expected him to be her protector, to be her partner. She had children with him and he was, you know, he was her person. So when someone is your person like that and then they can do something like that to you, like, where does that leave you? With a stranger? Like, what can you expect from a stranger? I mean, I would like to kind of bring up an article that you wrote actually about this kind of similar situation called I don't like when men sit next to me. I don't know if all of you who are listening have read it yet, but we'll put the link down in the description. It was written from personal experience by Gayanjali, who's here with us right now. And she's gonna tell us all about her experience and then we shall know what it's like from strangers.

Yeah. So when I'm riding on the bus, I always wish to myself that, oh my God, no man should sit next to me. Don't sit next to me. So I am always wondering, like, who will sit next to me? Because it really changes the mood. It changes the whole day. I look forward to. So that was my focus in this article and I have a lot of experiences regarding this. Like, I have felt like I don't own my body, like anyone can touch or come lean on me whenever I go out on out in public. So, yeah, that's why I wanted to write this about men harassing women on public transport. So I hope everyone reads it. And I. I'm sure that if every girl has a story like this in her life and the fact that it cannot be erased from your mind, like I. I can even count how many times I have been assaulted and I can Tell you every exact details. And I remember it all too well. Like, I can tell everything about it and it doesn't go away, it doesn't fade away. So it's really haunting. It's always haunting to sit next to a man. So, yeah, I wish men wouldn't sit next to me.

Yeah. That's something that I think a lot of girls all over the world experience. Now, for example, like you said in public transport, girls avoid taking public transport after a certain time because it's inevitable at that time. Like, you know, if you get into a bus, like after 8, 9 o' clock in the night, you know something is going to happen. It's not like, will something happen. It's. It's at that point. It's there where we are right now. So we really need to kind of have a. We really need to kind of think of why is it just because men think that they own women? Because that is what happened in this case. Also, like the men who came, the men who came forward who actually replied to Dominic on the chat room and agreed to all his terms and conditions. You know, park your vehicle one block away, come walking, don't wear anything. You have to do this, you have to do that. Yeah. So all of them agreed with him. And like, they never thought, like, you know, no one asked her, like, is she okay with this? Is she in on this? They didn't care because to them it was like, she's your wife, so you can do whatever you want with her kind of thing. Oh, you want to share her? Fine, let me join. Like, that was the whole situation there.

And the best talk about this deeply ingrained idea that carrying a woman gives a man the ownership over her, her body, her choices, even her soul. You know, it's as if marriage is treated like the purchase of the luxury property. Right? So it's like where the husband assumes full rights to dictate what happens within it, how it's used, and who gets access to it. Like this, this man does. So they believe they can make and break the rules and demand obedience and expect anything from her beyond her, her choices and her consent. So it's really. It strips women of their humanity and reduces them to objects of possession. It's not love. It's. It's like, it's. It's pure control. And yet this toxic idea is it persists in so many cultures like ours, you know, our South Asian culture, it's really ingrained in our cultures. So feeding into cases like this, Giselle's where her husband didn't just violate her. He treated her like as if she was his property to share, exploit and abuse as he pleased. It's a horrifying reminder that his mentality isn't just outdated. It's dangerous.

Yeah, it is dangerous. I mean, it's not exactly now, if you think about this, men telling their wives what to do has come to a point where dating apps are now the new Coco online chat room. If you know about the situation with dating apps where couples are marketing themselves out and husbands looking for something extra, couple saying that they're both into it, and it's just like, you know, a whole, whole situation of people just misusing that whole app in the sense it was invented for people who don't have anyone yet. Like, I'm not going to name apps. Everyone knows what dating apps are. So you want to find someone. You don't go out, you have a lot of work, so you're busy and you think. And someone comes up with an idea for an app. You know, okay, single people get on the app, put up a bio. You can find someone here. But it turned up. What it turned into was it turned into a catalog. It turned into a catalog for married people, single people, to kind of, you know, engage in activities where you can't, you know, directly communicate to someone else. But just being on the app was kind of permission. If you were on that app, people automatically assume you're okay with anything. Like, I can approach you, I can ask you anything. I can, you know, make a suggestion for you to do something that's, like, really bad, and it's fine, you're on the app. So that means you're. This is your character. So that's what dating apps have turned into, unfortunately for the people who actually want to use it to find someone. So now going back, that's a whole other track that if I get onto, I'm not going to stop. So we'll. I just found this quote from Caroline, who is Giselle's daughter. She's 34, and once she got to know, like, what her father, her. Her father had been doing to her mother, she said, my father is one of the worst sexual predators of the last 20 years. Just imagine a daughter having to say that about her own father. I mean, girls and their fathers are pretty close. So she would have been close to her father who was acting the perfect man, the perfect husband. Imagine Jesus feeling. You know, there are women who, like, complain, my husband is in crook. I have to do everything. And this man was making her dinner every night. And she Must have been like, oh, I'm so lucky. She would have been thinking, I have this man, he's cooking for me. He loves me so much. I love him. We had children together, we've been living together, being together since we were 19 years old. And just imagine her sitting there thinking that she was lucky. Just imagine her sitting there and talking to him about her fears of having Alzheimer's or a brain tumor and him just sitting there and listening to her. And in those photos. But when they were investigating, they found photos of his daughter asleep in bed in underwear that she did not recognize as her own. So she believes that her father had drugged her too at some point and taken pictures which was all on his computer. So he can't deny taking them. He had them with him. So she says that he probably drugged her too. So he also found naked photos of his daughters in law. Multiple. There's an S there, plural. So this man has just gone over and above when he was going through this whole thing. And so now Caroline, in better news, there's better news. Caroline has joined forces with MP Sandrine Josso to produce a drug testing kit that is available in pharmacies throughout France. So something came out of this and the government is backing this project for drug testing kits to be available in France. And I think that all countries should think about this. I mean, the way date trip drugs are being distributed on the streets, I think people should have the ability to, you know, wake up the next day and be able to test whether something happened to them last night or not, whether they took something without wanting to or whether someone did something to them. At least that's a start. Because in Jiselle's situation, she didn't know what was happening to her until her husband got arrested for something else. And this came out for 10 years, she had no idea that people were raping her. Like at least if she knew that there was drugs in her system, if she had a drug testing kit, she could have known that there were drugs and then she could have have been a point for her to start investigating. Okay, if I was drugged, then what happened? What is happening while I'm being drugged? When am I being drugged? How am I being drugged? Like it should be available. It should be something that people can do. But it's starting in France because of this. I don't know how many people are going to turn this story around, turn it into something else, turn it into something that makes Giselle look ridiculous, which is going to happen. I'm pretty sure that they're Already reporters who reported on this case who probably said something negative about her saying that she knew or she's just pretending she liked it and now she's saying she didn't. There I'm sure that there are people like that out there and there are people probably commenting 10,000, 20,000 comments on her posts saying, you know, why are you, you couldn't possibly have not known. Why are you pretending? Do you think that he could have done this without you knowing for 10 years? Like those are things that go through, people said, but what they don't realize is not Giselle, but there are women who are helpless, who are not drugged, but are going through the same situation. There are women who don't have a choice, who are, who don't have a way of escaping, who don't have anyone to talk to, who can't, you know, turn around and say, you know, this happened to me and have someone believe them. There are so many women who are stuck in that situation as well. So we have to remember them. We have to remember that this is what our world has come to and we have to be the starting point for a change. And that's why we are here at matriarchy times. We are fighting for a change. We are fighting to overturn the patriarchy uphill battle, but we are going forward with it. We have been in matriarchy times now for two years. We have completed many projects and we have written so many articles which if you haven't read, I invite you all to take a look because there's so much value in there, so much things you can learn. More than that, I invite all of you to join our community. We have a community in Discord. If you don't know what Discord is, It's something like WhatsApp, a little better. You can join it through our website. The link to our website will be down as well. And come, we have a whole more than 50, 200 like minded people already there who daily communicate about the situations and what we can do about it. So if that's something that you'd like to be a part of, I think you should join the community because we need your voice, we need your help and we love to have you as well. So anyone listening, you want to be a part of this. You want to be a voice that changes the way things are happening in this world. I think you should come join us at the matriarchy times and all of us are there. Kayanjali, me, Poornima also who's on our other podcast. So if you didn't know who Giselle Pellicat was. You do now and just know that like the 20 people who were on tape but still managed to escape out there and there are so many men and who are out there who have not been videotaped and who have escaped. So just keep that in mind and if you know anything about it, just know that the tides have turned. You no longer have to be ashamed. You can go and report it. Just tell someone. Just report someone. Don't. It's not your fault what happened to you. Whatever happened to you is not your fault. Don't ever think that. Just know that there are people out there like us. There are communities out there who want to hear you, who are there for you. And yeah, you can get help. You can be heard. You don't have to hide. Thanks everyone and hope you have a good night or a good day wherever you are in the world. And until next time, we are matriarchal voices.