A woman who refuses sex to her husband should not be considered “at fault”; France condemned by the ECHR

A woman who refuses sex to her husband should not be considered by the courts as “at fault” in the event of divorce, ruled the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which condemned France on Thursday January 23.

The Court ruled in favor of the applicant, a 69-year-old French woman whose husband had obtained a divorce solely at the fault of his wife on the grounds that she had stopped having sexual relations with him for several years.

In a judgment delivered Thursday, the Court which sits in Strasbourg recalls that “any non-consensual sexual act constitutes a form of sexual violence”. “The Court cannot accept, as the government suggests, that consent to marriage implies consent to future sexual relations. Such a justification would be likely to remove marital rape from its reprehensible nature.declared the ECHR.

“A turning point in the fight for women’s rights”

“I hope that this decision will mark a turning point in the fight for women’s rights in France”reacted the applicant in a press release sent by her lawyer, Lilia Mhissen.

In July 2018, the family affairs judge of the Versailles high court ruled that the divorce could not be pronounced for fault and that the wife's health problems were likely to justify the lasting absence of sexuality in the family. within the couple.

But in 2019, the Versailles Court of Appeal pronounced the divorce solely due to the wife's faults, holding her as a ” mistake “ his refusal of “intimate relations with her husband”. The applicant filed an appeal, which was rejected.

The wife then contacted the ECHR, relying on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, relating to the right to respect for private and family life.