The European Courts of Human Rights (ECHR) recently ruled that Romania failed to conduct an efficient investigation and punish an alleged rape of a 14-year old girl with intellectual disabilities.

The family of a young girl from Romania filed a complaint with the local authorities on January 14, 2007, claiming that the girl was raped the day before. While at a funeral wake, the 14-year old girl was grabbed by three teenage boys and taken to a man who was waiting for her in a deserted building’s garden and then she said as raped. Two other man were present there: one of them attempted to rape her as well, and the other one, although intending to have intercourse with her, finally decided to help her and take her back to the house where the wake was taking place.

During the investigation, the men said that the girl had consented to having sexual intercourse. The prosecutor accepted the explanation and indicted the man who allegedly raped the girl for the crime of sexual intercourse with a minor, and the other one for attempting to commit the same crime.

However, the Romanian prosecutor considered that the three teenage boys could not have known what the men were intending to do, so they had no criminal responsibility in this case. Moreover, the criminal proceedings against the third man were discontinued as he had not had sexual intercourse with the girl.

In October 2007, Romanian courts found the two men indicted in this case guilty as charged and gave them suspended sentences, which were subsequently increased on appeal to three years’ and 18 months’ imprisonment, respectively.

The local authorities based their conclusions on the alleged rapists’ statements, who claimed that they had not forced the girl in any way, according to ECHR. They also took into account the fact that her body showed no signs of violence, as attested to by a medical certificate, and that she had not called help or immediately told her girlfriends about the alleged abuse.

However, the authorities didn’t address the extensive medical evidence submitted with regard to the trauma suffered by the young girl, who was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on three occasions since the incident with stress-related anxiety, a sleep disorder, headaches and depression. Moreover, in February 2007, she was diagnosed with a slight intellectual disability.

In July 2008, the young girl and her family decided to file a complaint with ECHR, saying that the authorities in Romania had been more inclined to believe the men involved in the abuse, rather than her, given that there were no physical evidence of the assault. Moreover, the authorities didn’t took into consideration her young age and vulnerabilities and had shown no concern for the need to protect her as a minor.

“In conclusion, without expressing an opinion on the guilt of the three men involved in the incident, the Court found that the investigation of the case had been deficient, notably on account of the State’s failure to effectively apply the criminal-law system for punishing all forms of rape and sexual abuse. The Court therefore held that there had been a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment),” reads the ECHR’s statement.

ECHR held that Romania was to pay the young girl EUR 12,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

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Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com