No Safe Land For Women

Noelia is gone. In a world where each morning begins with violence, another death has occurred—and it has become singular. 

In a world made up of bomb shelters and bunkers, where everyone is thinking about how to survive, one very young woman wanted only one thing for several years: to die as soon as possible. She simply waited for permission to be granted. [cite: 4] She spoke of unbearable pain, both psychological and physical, that she had lived with since 2022, when she first attempted to take her own life after a gang rape. 

Noelia did not become a Spanish Gisèle Pelicot and never spoke about those who made her wish for death. She did not gather them in a courtroom, did not listen to their justifications with her back straight, and did not become a global icon of feminism. She jumped from a roof and descended into a constant, intolerable pain—both mental and physical.

The world might not have noticed. “Mr Everyman”, as the French press described the composite portrait of Gisèle Pelicot’s rapist, often rapes women and sees nothing remarkable in it. A respectable woman from a small French town was, for years, drugged and raped by her husband, who invited participation from strangers through anonymous chats. And they came. 

So it was here: Noelia’s rape passed largely without public attention, yet her desire to die provoked a storm of debate. How could she? Where was the Church? What sort of parents had she been given? Few saw in what had happened the fault of the unknown men who destroyed the life of a young woman from a disadvantaged background at the age of just twenty-two. 

Rapists are rarely the cinematic maniacs, madmen raised by pathological mothers.  They may be ordinary people: fathers of many children, classmates, neighbours, colleagues, casual acquaintances from the internet. They see nothing extraordinary in turning another person’s body into an object, into defenceless flesh. They wash in the shower with a sense of disgust—not at themselves, but at the person they have just humiliated—and then return to their wives and offices, quickly discarding the event from their minds. “She” always “wanted it”. 

To be raped is still shameful and degrading in the eyes of society. [cite: 19] To report violence is dangerous and, often, futile. [cite: 20]

Does the world know of rapists who have thrown themselves from roofs after committing their crimes, and then asked for euthanasia? 

Remember Noelia. Be like Gisèle Pelicot. Speak out about rapists, and do not forget who bears responsibility for the crime. 

Rape is a crime.