[2] She joined the Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto (UDMA) of Ferhat Abbas in 1953, at the age of 15, and later the National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1951.

[3] Early in the Algerian War, Boupacha worked as a trainee at Béni Messous Hospital but was prevented from taking a certificate in training because of her race and religion.

The torture purportedly included sexual violence, burning her breasts and legs with cigarettes, as well as vaginal rape with an empty beer bottle, as reported by Simone de Beauvoir.

[6] Working with French Tunisian lawyer Gisèle Halimi, Boupacha brought her torture case to trial, causing a scandal in France and Algeria and gaining wide public attention.

Halimi and Simone de Beauvoir wrote a book entitled Djamila Boupacha, with the subtitle 'The Story of the Torture of a Young Algerian Girl which Shocked Liberal French Opinion' as part of a broader plan to "rally public opinion and to put the government on trial for violating Article 344 of the French Penal Code".

"[9] Julien Murphy states that "in her memoir, Beauvoir minimized the political content and impact" of her 1960 writing, portraying it as simply Djamila's story, whereas it "was actually a scathing indictment of the Army.

[11] The book itself, published in 1962, not only describes Boupacha’s story yet also serves as a "historical record" and Beauvoir's "most explicit act of support for decolonization of Algeria".

"[14] More generally, scholars such as Maria Vendetti argue that the text Djamila Boupacha "brings the act of torture into public discourse…despite the strong preference for denial and inattention.

[17] In 1958, Henri Alleg authored a text entitled La Question, thereby connecting Boupacha to male torture victims in Algeria and corroborating and legitimizing her statement further.

In 2005, Boupacha told an interviewer that she was selected for this delegation only because “they needed a woman,” more to improve Algeria’s public image and “fulfill a gendered role” than to engage in serious politics.

[25] In Algiers in 1963, Boupacha visited the new Fatma N’Soumer Centre for Daughters of Shuhada with Nasser, contributing to an image that positioned the women who fought with the FLN guerillas during the war as "direct descendants of the anti-colonial struggle which had begun in the nineteenth century" and portraying "the young girls in the orphanage as representing the future of the struggle for freedom, equality and pan-Arab unity.

President Emmanuel Macron recalled the acts of humiliation, torture, and rape inflicted by the French army upon Boupacha during the Algerian War.