Friday, January 24, 2025 - A woman who was blamed by French courts for her divorce because she no longer had sex with her husband, has won an appeal in Europe’s top human rights court, the court said on Thursday, January 23.
The French woman - identified as Ms H.W, born in 1955 -
brought her case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2021 after
exhausting legal avenues in France almost a decade following the divorce.
The woman, who married her husband in 1984 and had four
children with him, wanted the divorce, but contested being blamed for the
breakup, arguing it was an unjust intrusion into her private life and a
violation of her physical integrity.
She cited health problems and threats of violence from her
husband as reasons she had not had sex with him from 2004 onwards.
The fact that one of the couple’s children was mentally and
physically handicapped put added stress on the marriage.
H.W., who is from Le Chesnay near Paris, said she had been
deeply traumatized by the ruling, which “legitimized a family environment where
the privacy and dignity of women are ignored and flouted.”
The new ECHR ruling stated that the French courts had
violated the woman’s right to respect private and family life.
“In the present case, the Court could not identify any reason
capable of justifying this interference by the public authorities in the area
of sexuality,” it said in a statement.
The ECHR ruling comes amid the high-profile case of Gisele
Pelicot, whose husband was found guilty of drugging his wife and inviting
dozens of men over to their home to rape her. The case shocked the world,
rekindled thorny debates about women’s rights in France and turned Gisele
Pelicot into a feminist icon.
In a statement released by her lawyer, Lilia Mhissen, H.W.
celebrated her legal victory.
“I hope this decision will mark a turning point in the fight
for women’s rights in France,” she said. “It is now imperative that France,
like other European countries, such as Portugal or Spain, take concrete
measures to eradicate this rape culture and promote a true culture of consent
and mutual respect.”
Mhissen said the ECHR ruling has no impact on H.W.’s divorce,
which is definitive. However, she said it will have a major impact on French
law, preventing French judges from making similar divorce rulings in the
future.
“This decision marks the abolition of the marital duty and
the archaic, canonical vision of the family,” she said in a statement. “Courts
will finally stop interpreting French law through the lens of canon law and
imposing on women the obligation to have sexual relations within marriage.”
France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, which
represented the French government in the case, did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Emmanuelle Piet, the head of one of the Feminist Collective
Against Rape, said she was delighted with the new ruling.
“Ms. W spent 15 years fighting this battle, and it ended in
victory, bravo,” she said. “When you are forced to have sexual relations in
marriage, it is rape.”
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