Samira Bellil

French feminist activist and a campaigner for the rights of girls and women. Bellil became famous in France with the publication of her autobiographical book "Dans l'enfer des tournantes" ("In the hell of the 'tournantes' (gang-rapes)") in 2002. The book discusses the violence she and other young women endured in the predominantly Muslim immigrant outskirts of Paris, where she was repeatedly gang-raped as a teenager by gangs led by people she knew, and then abandoned by her family and friends. The book is available in English (translated by Lucy R. McNair) as "To Hell and Back: The Life of Samira Bellil." Bellil had years of therapy with psychologist Boris Cyrulnik before she decided to write her book to show other young women gang-rape survivors that there was a way out. "It's long and it's difficult, but it's possible," she wrote in the dedication - to "my sisters in trouble." She used her real name and put her photo on the cover. She died on 3 September 2004 of stomach cancer in Paris, aged 31. Link to Wikipedia biography