The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) sided Thursday with three women who said they were raped when they were aged 13, 14 and 16 and argued that French authorities did not do enough to protect them.
The ruling will likely fuel the debate on the inclusion of consent in the law for sexual offences that was reignited by the drugging-and-rape trial that riveted France last year. France has taken steps to toughen punishment for rape and sexual misconduct, including setting 15 as the age of consent, but the notion of consent has yet to be introduced into the legal definition of rape.
