Every morning, as soon as Emilie opens her eyes, she reaches for the pillbox on her bedside table. (All the women's names in this article have been changed to protect them.) She removes the earplugs that protect her from her hyperacusis, then takes beta-blockers to calm her tachycardia and anxiolytics for her generalized anxiety. She waits for the medication to take effect before getting out of bed.

Emilie, who is in her thirties, also suffers from bruxism. The involuntary clenching of her teeth is so severe that she had to have nearly €700 worth of botox injected into her jaw to compensate. "I spent €12,000 on treatments to manage the symptoms of the rapes I suffered in the French Bukkake case, and then the courts come along and tell us that this isn't torture?" she said, angrily. She is a plaintiff in one of the biggest cases of sexual violence in French judicial history, the so-called French Bukkake case, named after the network that filmed and then distributed hundreds of pornographic videos of young women being assaulted.

Opened in the spring of 2020 and conducted by the Paris gendarmerie, this extensive investigation led to the drafting of a referral to a departmental criminal court in Paris at the end of August 2023. The two investigating judges in the case are requested that, in the name of a "systemic practice," 17 men be indicted for gang rape, trafficking of human beings as part of an organized gang, and aggravated procuring, on some 50 plaintiffs.

The young women, who are dealing with the very serious consequences of the injuries inflicted by the French Bukkake network, asked their lawyers to appeal against the order for a trial before the departmental criminal court, hoping to obtain recognition of a certain number of aggravating circumstances that would trigger a trial in the criminal court that tries the most serious crimes, the Cour d'Assises, where the penalties incurred by perpetrators are greater.

"There aren't many cases like this in history, and we can't afford substandard justice," argued Vanina Meplain, Sofia's lawyer. The 40 or so representatives of the plaintiffs pleaded for additions to the indictment. They want the prosecutors to note the "particular vulnerability" of the victims, which was known to the perpetrators, and the motivations of "sexism" and "racism" – the file abounds with slurs and demeaning language. Above all, they want recognition that "acts of torture and barbarism" were committed.

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