2024-09-27 04:00:19
Gisèle Pelicot, near the Avignon courthouse, September 23, 2024. CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP
“Chemical submission”: the expression has established itself in public debate, thanks to the Mazan rape trial. With another: “medical wandering”. Because during the almost ten years of Gisèle Pelicot’s ordeal, raped by her husband and dozens of men after being drugged with anxiolytics, clinical signs and symptoms had been identified – memory loss, “absences”, gynecological problems… Without the “puzzle” leading to the identification of the sexual assaults of which she was the victim being able to be pieced together.
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Beyond the seriousness of the facts, and the emotion they arouse, the case questions the role of doctors, an essential watchdog in the face of this type of violence. But “how to think of the unthinkable? » : the question is asked, in these terms, by general practitioners, those family doctors closest to their patients, who do not hide their frequent ignorance of this type of violence.
“Of course we are concerned about this matter, but the tracking function assigned to us is not simple, reports Emeline Pasdeloup, co-responsible, within the College of General Medicine, of a working group on the issue formed a year ago. We are on the border of two delicate subjects to address in consultation, that of sexual health and that of violence. » It’s even more complicated, adds this young general practitioner working in the Loiret, “when the patient does not come for that, or when she comes accompanied by her husband” – a common scenario.
Total or partial amnesia
Added to the lack of training of professionals is the complexity of the phenomenon: chemical submission, defined by the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) as“administration for criminal purposes (rape, acts of pedophilia) or misdemeanor (intentional violence, theft) of psychoactive substances without the victim’s knowledge, or under threat”has the particularity of plunging many victims into total or partial amnesia.
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How many are there? Estimation is very difficult. During the year 2022, according to data from the national addictovigilance networkcollected through forensic medicine services, toxicology laboratories, emergency services, police, etc. 1,229 “substance-facilitated attacks” were retained at the ANSM. Among them, 97 refer to cases of chemical submissions “likely”346 to so-called cases of chemical “vulnerability” (induced by consumption ” voluntary “ of substances) and 786 to submissions “possible”. The Paris addictovigilance center, which has been coordinating this annual national survey for twenty years, speaks of an increase “exponential”to be linked to the freedom of speech on social networks.
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