Why You Shouldn’t Get Raped in Paris
Liberté, Egalité, Impunité.
*The names of the people involved have been changed in order to protect the identity of the survivor.
My friend got raped in Paris this weekend. Paris is famous for its nightlife, being a hub for foreigners and locals alike. Lulu White, a jazz bar that has recently become extremely trendy for the younger generations, is where a fun night out turned into a night of pure and raw horror. I have been hearing all about it in my university and from my French friends; a place to grab cocktails of unique mixology and to hear live bands play experimental jazz. Being located in Pigalle which is one of the biggest touristic spots in Paris, known for the infamous Moulin Rouge, it does indeed have a bad reputation, as one of the “sketchy” neighbourhoods in Paris, and it is where a rape happened, not even two blocks away. Wanting to have a fun night out with friends with music and drinks, my friend Hannah* decided to go and try it out.
According to The Independent, one in eight women says they have been raped. How can this be feasible? Even worse, nine out of ten rapes in Paris go unreported according to Vice news. Comparingly, in the United States one one of six people from ages 12 and above have either been victims of rape or attempted sexual assault, according to RAINN statistics. In Mexico, 44 percent of women will face sexual violence at one point in their lifetime, reports Huffington Post, and 91 percent of the crimes go unreported. France does not stand alone in the powerless impunity of their system and those who partake in it. However, strides are indeed being taken by the French Republic like the banning of catcalling and introducing hefty fines of up to 750 euros. There seems to be hope, after all.
The first night went without a hitch. The music was amazing, the drinks delicious and even the cute guy from the band, the trumpet player, invited her to come back the next night. And she did, only to find herself violated, alone and terrified. After texts were exchanged, she met him at the bar. His set finished and since the music was loud, he asked her to go for a walk so they could get to know each other better. They stepped outside to wonder around the breathtaking streets of Paris at night, hoping to find a common connection. But, that is when he pulled her hair, shoved her against a wall, ripped off her underwear and proceeded to rape her.
“Well, I have to go now.” he said after he finished. Desolate, alone and horrified on the street, she lay there not knowing what to do. Her underwear, beside her, torn to shreds and her attacker was nowhere to be found. My friend Jane* was staying over, and we were finishing our last episode of our TV show before getting some shut-eye. Her phone rang. It was Hannah. I heard her panicked voice over the phone and concern began to boil in my stomach. Had something happened? Was she okay? Maybe she was lost and since she’s a foreigner, couldn’t call an Uber home due to the lack of having data. She hung up and I asked Jane what had happened. She was unable to tell me what was wrong with Hannah, so I decided to compartmentalise and give her a call in the morning. Thirty minutes pass and I receive a phone call from Hannah again. This time, she was in distraught tears. I pressed her and asked her what was wrong to no avail. She would not tell Jane or me what was wrong. Something was most definitely wrong, and I assumed the worst, hoping she would correct me. “Did you get raped?” I asked her trying to hide my paranoid concern, only to have it answered by a chilling silence on the line. “Please. Tell me. Did you get raped?” I reiterated, unable to hide the panic that was consuming me and transferring into my voice. Silence.
Everything after that happened pretty quickly. Ubers were called, discussions were had and Lara*, another friend of ours staying over, got woken up and read into the situation before being dispatched with Jane to go pick Hannah. Panic comes in waves, I figured. We agreed upon a strategy and I stayed at home, waiting dreadfully in silence. As the door closed behind them, I headed over to the kettle to make some tea. Tea calms people right? I needed something to do with my hands since the breath had been knocked out of me as the door slammed behind them. My lungs were unable to pass any oxygen. “It happened again” I kept saying to myself, since this is not the first, but the second time one of the women in my life get raped in Paris. As I panicked and bit the tears back, my brain went into absolute recall mode. What was the first thing I did last time? Hospital. Get the HIV prevention medicine. Blood tests. Go to the police. Here is where things begin to get complicated, as if they were not already complicated enough. “He does not get to get away with this,” was our mantra when Hannah arrived at my house. “You need to speak up. Use your voice. He does not get the satisfaction.” We encouraged and coaxed, even if in the back of my mind I knew we were going to get no sleep this night because of the arduous process that awaited us.
France prides itself in having one of the best healthcare systems in the world; and sometimes, it does. But, this does not apply to rape victims. After arriving at the Georges Pompidou hospital and having to wait for thirty minutes, we were finally called upon. I speak French with almost native proficiency which immediately assigned me the role of interpreter. I imperatively told the receptionist that I was not to leave her side since she spoke very little French and she hesitantly agreed, promising to discuss it with the nurses. My friend and I were ushered in by a belligerent nurse that kept us waiting for at least forty minutes for a doctor to arrive, barking questions at me as I translated for both parties involved. Finally, the doctor arrived and we exchanged formalities quickly. His English was below a proficient level, so I again began translating as quickly and tactfully as I could. After a quick discussion, we were taken into another room to wait yet again, for someone to perform a blood draw and for medication to be prescribed. Questions were asked and answered as we sped through the process and we began to be pressured to talk to the police, even if the initial, second and third answer were no. No rape kit or further tests were taken; a failure from the hospital to process a rape victim as they should. After prescriptions were written and a consensus was reached on contacting the police, we began to do the only thing we had the power of doing that night; we waited.
A lot of regrets were discussed that fateful night, and one of them, was acceding to talking to the police. They arrived and were surprised to find four women holding each other so tightly, attempting to laugh and distract themselves from the harsh reality that awaited them upon reflection. They did not have enough space for all of us, (none of us were going to leave Hannah’s side) so they did us the kindness of calling a bigger car. That was one of the few interactions we had with a woman in control that night. A kind policewoman sat with us in the back as we all huddled together inside, unable to let go of each other lest we fall to pieces. Her and I had a brief discussion, and I could see the agony, as a fellow woman, in her eyes. Her sympathy gave me hope that this would be a smooth transaction and soon we would be home, drinking a cup of tea and going to bed, facing the days to come with our heads held high and taking the necessary action. Let it be known, that I have never been so wrong before in my life.
Ushered into the Commissariat du XVéme arrondissement, we all sat together, drinking coffee and attempting to get Hannah to eat something. It felt like we were being handed off from one person to another, but we were finally with the police. We were safe and justice was going to be served that night. Or so we thought. France has many things to be proud of as a country. They serve as an example of principle and values to the world. We look to them to help us understand the bizarreness of the times we live in today; we sought out for them as an example to follow in many things such as the fight for climate change, human rights, justice for the wronged. And yet, when faced with a situation of injustice, the thing that we were unable to find after occurrences of the night, was exactly that: justice. We waited and waited for someone to come talk to us, until they did. Working as interpreter once more and having Jane as moral support, we were put in a room that felt like a closet, with a room temperature of 40 degrees and not one glass of water was offered, not even for Hannah. The detective, a man, approached us, greeted us and sat in front of us. He began by apologising for the situation, but formalities were done after that. We got straight to the point. Hannah began recounting her story, pauses between sobs of despair and apologies because of the questions from the detective were offered. It is important to highlight that this police officer did not speak any English whatsoever. Attempting to be assertive and tactful, I continued to translate until he got up, told me he was going to make a phone call and left. Soothing Hannah became my duty as well and Jane and I murmured words of reassurance and gave her the hope that it was almost done and we could put this whole ordeal behind us. Yet, it was far, far from over.
He called the magistrate and a judge, which drove Hannah into a state of panic because she had not wanted it to go this far. Scared and terrified, she wanted to leave and begged the detective to let us leave. To my absolute and utmost horror, he refused to let us leave. We were not being allowed to leave because the snowball had started rolling, and there was no way to stop it. We had given all the information we knew, gave the statement and wanted to go home and heal. We were not allowed to do that, apparently, since we had various bureaucratic hoops ahead of us to jump through. After a heated discussion with the detective and in an attempt to calm Hannah, we were promised that it would all be over soon; we just had to go to the judiciary police in the 10th arrondissement, pick up a piece of paper and then we would have our freedom back. We hesitantly agreed, Lara headed home to hold down the fort and Jane, Hannah and I set out to finish the painful proceedings of the night. I stepped outside to take a break from translation and the heat and smoked a cigarette. Curious police officers asked me about the situation and I gave simple answers. They began to strike up small talk with me and the fact that I’m from Mexico came up. “Oh but the cartels and the violence.” “Isn’t it an incredibly dangerous and violent country?” For which, I responded, “Indeed. But there is a different kind of violence here in Paris. Mexico is violent because of the cartels, but Paris is violent with it’s women. This is the second time that I am here with a friend of mine who does not speak French and got raped.” Silence dominated the circle as I took long drags of the cigarette and no one sought to make eye contact with me. Coming from Mexico, police officers are more times than not, corrupt. But when I needed them, they were there. They were kind, helpful and understanding, which is something that was lacking in this situation. There was no empathy. No solace.
We followed the two police officers to their patrol car. One good thing can be taken out of this horrendous night: those two police officers were the kindest, most understanding and gentle people we had and would encounter throughout the entire ordeal. We pulled up to the other precinct, got waved in and excitement bubbled as we thought that our night of horrors was coming to a close. We were told to wait a moment by the two kind police officers as they headed inside and sought out the person who was supposed to give us the paper so we could go to the hospital equipped to help victims and then go home, but what happened next was, in my opinion, the most obscene experience that I have ever had to live through.
France became my home. It took me in and provided like a surrogate country to my every need. There are so many aspects of this Republic that I hold in the highest regard, but I do have a question for the French Republic; well, I have a few. It is not the fault of the Republic how some situations are handled, but it is the fault of the select few that prevent the institution from functioning as it should. How can a country and a system that prides itself in bringing justice to situations of injustice allow for the following occurrences to take place? It makes me question a lot of things that the the French Republic prides itself in, with all due respect. I know that it is not necessarily the fault of the Republic but those who hold the power to make a difference and choose indifference. How can you be a beacon of hope for others when injustice is rampant in your own house? How can it be that you claim to be righteous, law abiding and just when you allow for oppressive and archaic systems to take control of how a human being that has just been through an egregious trauma is treated?
The person who came out of the long corridor to “help” us, did the complete antithesis. To start off, he was a man. It should be protocol that when a rape victim is female, another woman should be the first one to greet her. After rapid words were exchange between him, his colleagues and myself, he switched to English and began barking orders at Hannah. As if it weren’t bad enough that she already had to give her statement once, “You’re going to come inside and talk to me.” he said. Hannah began having another panic attack. I think we all felt like caged animals at that point. “Oh la la,” he said rolling his eyes, “On va avoir un problème lá.” (Oh my, I think we’re going to have a problem here.) in a very condescending manner. I think something inside of me snapped. I could have been the accumulation of sleep deprivation, how aghast I was at his attitude or the agony I was in for my friend. I began yelling, not in a I-want-to-speak-to-your-manager yelling, but true raw yelling. It wasn’t from a place of fury or hatred, but from a place of defeat, complete and total destitution and unprecedented frustration. This man, who’s face will be forever etched into my mind, had the nerve of treating a rape victim like he would treat his grocery shopping, he wanted to go through the motions. The sound of my own raised voice rang in my ears as I continued to correct the plethora of reasons of why the detective should not be allowed to work with rape victims. It was like all of the voices of past women who had faced this injustice spoke through me. Since all of this was happening in French, my vocabulary was a bit more limited than my English, but I think I managed to get my point through to him since he would refuse to look at us in the eye.
We were told to wait in the waiting room after I finished, being coaxed with statistics of women who don’t declare their rape. Forty eight percent of women in Paris do not report their rape; I cannot say I’m surprised. The two kind police officers stood behind us the entire time, no one saying a word until after I was finished. “I am truly sorry for our system. We don’t protect our victims.” they kept saying as they gave words of reassurance to me. History repeated itself since we were prisoners of a police precinct once more, even though we were the victims of the crime. Ironic isn’t it? Desperation began to claw at our throats, as sobs attempted to escape with every breath and chests grew tighter and tighter with the dismal knowledge that we wouldn’t be able to go home yet. My biggest fear was Hannah. I could see it in her eyes that she was on the brink of breaking. I saw her as delicate thing, so frail and bruised, and in need of protecting. She couldn’t take any more, and we knew it. The police officers, Jane and I knew it all too well.
It is customary in France to have long waiting times. But this was period of time was beyond heinous. We stayed in that waiting room for almost another hour before taking matters into our hands, which seemed to be the only part of the night that we had control of. By this time, however, it was already 9 am on Saturday, we had been awake for 30 hours. Hannah called her country’s embassy, and after a few redirections and from one connection to the other, it seemed like we found the right people at the right time. The detectives had no legal right to hold us since we had committed no crime, and even though some of them wanted to help, they also wanted to fulfil a quota of arrests. Panic began to subside and I was asked to communicate the embassy official to the detective so I stood up, crossed the threshold into his office, handed him the phone and turned on my heel back to the waiting room. More waiting came. After the phone conversation finished, we were finally presented to a female detective and this inhumane detective retreated into his office. Since Hannah now refused to press charges, the detective asked for her underwear and the dress she was wearing underneath the hoodie and sweatpants. Hannah had to show her, once more, the picture that she had taken of the street the rape had happened and her underwear, torn to shreds laying on the street on the left. She apologised in short to us for the flowery demeanour of his colleague as if that would have made it any better. It didn’t.
This is where things get even more interesting, but I still have a few questions for the indifferent few that represent and the public healthcare system. It is beyond comprehensible to me, that a city with 2,241,346 million inhabitants, a good chunk of those being women, that you only have one hospital that is capacitated to deal with rape victims. Not only that, but at our time at the Georges Pompidou, the doctor had to call this hospital to ask for advice and was unable to perform the correct protocol for rape. Why is there not an established protocol for rape in every hospital in Paris? Why is there only one centre for rape victims? Women get raped every day in Paris, but nine out of ten do not report it, nor speak up and are unable to speak up. How is it that a system that punishes the victim and puts a magnifying glass on them, scrutinising every aspect of them, allows for oppression and silencing of the victim whilst their attacker gets away? You have the ability to change this. You hold power. Choose action, not inaction.
Finally, after profusely repeating that we would not be pressing charges anymore and that all we wanted to do was go home, the female police detective confessed that they had attempted to get us an appointment at the only hospital in Paris that is equipped to deal with rape. Turns out, the doctor refused to see us since he was fully booked and told us to come back at 9 pm. I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdly outrageous situation. Defeated and needing to take control once more, we suggested going there and asking to be seen. She told us to try, but she would be surprised if they did take us in. Ready to face the challenge, we agreed to go. Thankfully, the two police officers offered to drive us there and take us home if we weren’t taken in. It should also be noted, that even though I have that detective’s face etched forever in my mind, I also carry the memory of these two noble men who stood by us in the face of impunity. They gave us hope. There is always hope.
We arrived at the hospital, ready to put up a fight and with some newfound perseverance within us. We arrived to the clinic to find it empty, the receptionist dictating orders on the phone. We said good morning, and asked her if it was in any way possible for us to be taken in to just get the process over with. I was honestly prepared for a polite decline and for us to be told to come back at the time of our appointment. But by God, I was not prepared for how she reacted. She sighed, covered the phone with her hand and began, one more, yelling at us. At this point in time, we were used to it by now. “I have another police officer on the phone with me with another victim. It’s an emergency for every single one. Come back at the time of your appointment or tell me if she isn’t coming,” she said. We said we didn’t know if she wanted to come. “Well in that case, tell me now so I can give this one her place instead.” We had enough. We turned on our heel, thanked the kind police officers profusely and got driven home.
This kind of situations allow for moments of reflection. Not only is the treatment of rape victims ghastly in France, but what we went through is something that another young woman will probably go through or has already been through. We are not the first or the last. Her country’s embassy became a source of comfort and aid for Hannah as well as a great resource that helped her get through this horrid situation. They provided some clarity too, on the legal proceedings and I think given that we are in the #MeToo era and the #BalanceTonPorcEra, it is not only time to call out our abusers and harassers, but the systems that perpetuate the violence and are founded on scrutinising the victim. We must question why, in the French system, a victim must sit in a room with her attacker; of course, it’s optional but you won’t be taken seriously if you don’t do this. This has been the second time I have done this. It has been the second time I have been emotionally beaten to a pulp by the system and it’s perpetrators that fails it’s victims and does not allow for justice.
All I have left to say is, if the French Republic considers itself one of the most truthful, just systems and a beacon of values and morals for the world, they have a lot to reconsider.
