The European Court of Human Rights (ECTHR) unanimously ruled that there has been a violation of Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment), 4 (prohibition of forced labour/investigation), 8 (right to respect for private and family life), and 14 (prohibition of discrimination) in a case concerning an intellectually disabled Moldovan national who was abandoned at birth and has no known relatives.
The applicant was deprived of her legal capacity in 2011 and lived in State care up until the age of 39, when she was taken in by a couple. She went to live with the couple in 2013, but five years later, the applicant ran away from their farm and rang a hotline alleging that she was neither paid for her work on the farm and that the male in the couple had been raping and sexually abusing her.
Subsequent to an investigation the Moldovan courts ultimately acquitted the couple of all charges including a charge of human trafficking. The courts found no evidence of forced labour and that any pay disputes were a civil matter, the courts found there was no evidence of rape as the man did not have a sexually transmitted disease, whereas she did. The courts also relied on witnesses from the farm including workers and social workers who did not believe the applicants claims, claiming she was not telling the truth “because, as a person with disabilities, she enjoyed drawing attention to herself”. The courts dismissed statements by psychologists, who reported the applicant was able to tell the truth without exaggeration
The applicant brought proceedings to the ECtHR relying on Article 3, 4, 6, 8, 13 and 14 which respectively guaranteed the right to prohibition of inhumane treatment, prohibition of forced labour, right to a fair trial, right to respect for private life, right to an effective remedy and prohibition of discrimination. As she claimed that she had been transferred from State care and placed with a family where she was forced to work without pay, that the investigations into her allegations of sexual abuse had been ineffective and that a proper investigation had been prevented owing to stigma towards women with an intellectual disability.
The Court recognised that the Republic of Moldova had legislation in place outlawing human trafficking, slavery, and forced labour, as well as criminalising sexual abuse. While the criminal legislation were appropriate, the legal and administrative structure for removing people with intellectual impairments from State care was flawed, mainly due to a lack of support services and monitoring.
In the applicant’s case, this resulted in the authorities failing to take measures to protect her and to adequately investigate her allegations. It also found the authorities had a discriminatory attitude towards the applicant as she was a woman with an intellectual disability. They had failed to factor in overlapping elements of her vulnerability and failed to provide her with the possibility to obtain justice, despite her explicit grievances.