What do Gisele Pelicot, Taylor Swift and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have in common? All of them defied stereotypes and spearheaded discourse in one way or another in 2024. As the year reaches its end, NDTV celebrates women who, through their resilience, pushed for change, becoming icons for many. Gisele Pelicot | French Mass Rape Survivor Source: AFP Seventy-two-year-old Gisele Pelicot was at the centre of a mass rape trial in France which resonated around the world, becoming an icon for women in the fight against sexual violence.
Her insistence on holding an open three-month trial in the southern city of Avignon garnered global support, with people hailing her as a hero. "I wanted all women who are rape victims to say to themselves: 'Mrs Pelicot did it, so we can do it too'," she said. Her former husband, Dominique Pelicot, who admitted to drugging her with sedatives and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her over a decade, was on December 19 handed the maximum term of 20 years in jail by a French court.
The other 50 defendants in the case were also convicted, receiving jail terms of between three and 15 years. After the verdict, she said she was thinking of the "unrecognised victims" of sexual violence, "whose stories often remain in the shadows". Giorgia Meloni | Prime Minister, Italy Source: AFP Giorgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy, emerged as one of the most powerful Europen leaders in 2024.
In just over two years after her election in 2022, Meloni ha.