The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday in favor of a 69-year-old French woman whose husband divorced her on the grounds that she had stopped having sex with him.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France, saying that a woman who refuses to have sex with her husband should not be considered “guilty” by the courts in a divorce case.

Court based in Strasbourg said that France had violated Article 8 European Convention on Human Rights, which refers to the right to respect for private and family life.

It is said that any concept of marital duties must take into account “consent” as the basis for sexual relations.

“According to the court’s opinion, consent to marriage cannot imply consent to future sexual relations,” said the court in news. “Such an interpretation would be tantamount to denying that marital rape is by its very nature reprehensible. On the contrary, consent had to reflect a free will to engage in sexual relations at a given time and under certain circumstances.”

The verdict came from a panel of seven judges from seven different nations: Spain, France, Armenia, Monaco, San Marino, the Czech Republic and Ukraine.

The mother of four, who wished to remain anonymous, welcomed the verdict.

“I hope this decision will mark a turning point in the fight for women’s rights in France,” she said in a statement. “This victory is for all women who, like me, have found themselves faced with abnormal and unjust court rulings that question their bodily integrity and their right to privacy.”

The ruling comes as French society debates the concept of consent.

Women’s rights advocates said the term “consent” must be added to French law defining rape.

The woman did not complain about the divorce, which she also requested, but about the reasons for which it was granted, the court said.

“Marriage is no longer sexual slavery”

The court identified her only as HW, saying she lives in Le Chesnay in the western suburbs of Paris.

“The court concluded that the very existence of such a marital obligation is in contradiction with sexual freedom, (and) the right to bodily autonomy”, and statement they said from the court.

“Every act of a sexual nature without consent was a form of sexual violence,” the statement added.

The Strasbourg-based court said French courts had failed to strike a “fair balance between the competing interests at stake”.

“The petitioner’s husband could have filed for divorce, citing the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage as the main reason and not, as he did, as an alternative reason,” the court concluded.

The woman and JC married in 1984 and had four children, including a disabled daughter who required constant parental presence, a role her mother took on.

Relations between husband and wife worsened when their first child was born. The woman started having health problems in 1992.

In 2002, her husband began physically and verbally abusing her, the court said.

In 2004, she stopped having sex with him, and in 2012 she filed for divorce.

In 2019, the Court of Appeal in Versailles dismissed the woman’s complaints and sided with her husband, while the Court of Cassation dismissed the appeal without giving specific reasons.

She turned to the European Court of Human Rights, which acts as a court of last instance where all domestic legal avenues have been exhausted, in 2021.

“It was impossible for me to accept it and leave it at that,” said the woman.

“The decision of the appeals court sentencing me was and is unworthy of a civilized society because it denied me the right not to consent to sexual relations, depriving me of the freedom to decide about my body,” she said.

“It strengthened the right of my husband and all spouses to impose their will.”

Her case was supported by two human rights groups, Fondation des Femmes (Women’s Foundation) and Collectif Feministe Contre Le Viol (Feminist Collective Against Rape).

Emmanuelle Piet, head of the Feminist Collective Against Rape, welcomed the court’s decision.

“Ms. W spent fifteen years fighting this battle, and she ended up winning, well done,” she said he told the Reuters news agency. “When you’re forced to have sex in a marriage, that’s rape.”

While French criminal law abolished the marital duty in 1990, “civil judges continue to impose it through an archaic vision of marriage,” they said.

“From now on, marriage is no longer sexual slavery,” said Delphine Zoughebi, a member of the women’s defense team. “This decision is all the more fundamental given that almost one in two rapes is committed by a spouse or partner.”

The ECHR is part of the 46-member pan-European rights body of the Council of Europe. It implements the European Convention on Human Rights and its decisions are legally binding and not advisory.