Failure to protect applicants’ physical integrity from non-consensual abortion and regarding first applicant also forced contraception

EUROPE: FORCED ABORTIONS AND BIRTH-CONTROL MEASURES

European Court of Human Rights, judgment, 22 November 2022, G.M. and others v. the Republic of Moldova (Application no. 44394/15)

«The case of G.M. and Others v. the Republic of Moldova (application no. 44394/15) concerned the imposition of abortions and birth-control measures on three intellectually disabled women, residents in a neuropsychiatric asylum, after they had been repeatedly raped by one of the head doctors there, and the investigation into their complaints. In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:
a violation of Article 3 – substantive aspect (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights as regards the inadequate legal protection of the physical integrity of women with intellectual disabilities, the forced abortions of the three applicants and the contraception imposed on the first applicant; and a violation of Article 3 – procedural aspect (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment: obligation to conduct an effective investigation) as regards all three applicants. The Court found in particular that the authorities had failed to carry out an effective investigation into the applicants’ allegations of ill-treatment despite it having been reopened on four occasions following their appeals. The inquiry had not factored in their vulnerability as intellectually disabled women exposed to sexual abuse in an institutional context. It found that the domestic criminal law had not provided effective protection against such invasive medical interventions carried out without the patient’s valid consent.»

Direct link to the judgment (hudoc.echr.coe.int)
Direct link to the press release (hudoc.echr.coe.int)

Gender Law Newsletter FRI 2023#1, 01.03.2023 - Newsletter abonnieren