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, reigniting a debate in France over women’s rights.
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 ECHR ruled that the French courts had violated the woman’s right to respect for 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 a period of soul-searching in France after 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.”
Health problems
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.
The woman, who married her husband in 1984 and had four children with him, wanted the divorce, but contested being blamed for the breakdown, 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 for why she had not had intimate relations 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.”
H.W.’s case was supported by two French women’s activism groups.
Emmanuelle Piet, the head of one of them, the Feminist Collective Against Rape, said she was delighted.
“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.”