The European Court of Human Rights, located in Strasbourg, in eastern France, said that the Frenchwoman should not be responsible for her divorce because she refused sex with her husband.
Frederick Florin / AFP via Getty Images
hide
tilting legend
Frederick Florin / AFP via Getty Images
The European Court of Human Rights has taken the side of a French woman whom the French courts had judged fault in her divorce because she refused to have sex with her husband. The Higher Court said that the human rights of the woman had been raped.
Three things to know
- The defendant, identified as HW, asked for the divorce in 2012 after more than 25 years of marriage, citing her husband in fault. She said he had become violent, in a bad mood and had prioritized her work on family life. Her husband argued that for several years, she had not managed to fulfill her marital tasks by holding sexual relations and making slanderous accusations. The French courts found that HW was at fault; The country’s main court of appeal rejected its final appeal.
- The CECH noted that the blame entirely on the lack of sexual intimacy of HW with her husband violated her right “to respect her private and family rights”. The court concluded that the simple existence of an obligation for “marital duties” was contrary to sexual freedom and the right to bodily autonomy.
- This happens at a particularly salient moment for women’s rights in France, because the very publicized case of the mass rape of Gisele Pelicot by her husband and several dozen men he recruited shocked the world and attracted the Watch out for the treatment of women in French society.
Listen to NPR State of the world podcast For a human perspective on global stories in a few minutes, every day of the week.
What does this mean for women’s rights in France?
In an unprecedented decision, Pelicot has chosen to return its public business, which forced France to face its patriarchal culture and sparked a deep intermediary on rape, consent and women’s rights to bodily autonomy.
The ECDH’s decision will feed this conversation.
Lilia Missen, HW’s lawyer, published a statement celebrating their victory, in the hope that this will inspire more change.
“I hope this decision will mark a turning point in the fight for women’s rights in France,” she said, as Reuters reported. “It is now imperative that France, like other European countries, such as Portugal or Spain, takes concrete measures to eradicate this culture of rape and promote a real culture of consent and mutual respect.”
