French Man Sentenced for Marital Rape of Moroccan Wife in Seine-Saint-Denis

It all started with a meeting that took place in 2018 in Morocco between Youcef*, a divorced Frenchman living in Bagnolet (Seine-Saint-Denis) and father of three children, and Samia*, 27, a young woman born in the kingdom. The latter was ready to "settle down". A few months later, she marries this man who is 16 years her senior. The quadragenarian brings his new wife to France. She was unaware that the man she had chosen to share her life with had been convicted twice for domestic violence. Their marital life in the two-room apartment of the maintenance worker will only last six months.

Three years later, the couple finds themselves. Not in their apartment, but in the Assize Court of Seine-Saint-Denis where Youcef is on trial for marital rape. While Samia was in search of love, her daily life is marked by social isolation, humiliation, beatings, forced sexual relations, reports La Dépêche du Midi. When Samia begs him to be able to go out, work, have money to buy sanitary napkins, her husband overwhelms her: "I brought you here for cooking and for sex!" At the end of her strength, the young woman goes to the police station. But it will be difficult to submit evidence for the judge’s consideration.

On the stand, she describes the same facts of repeated rapes and violence "He wanted sexual relations but [...] said things that hurt me," the young woman, now housed by the Samu social, relates through an interpreter. "I lived in hell, Madam President," Youcef retorts from his large glass dock, adding that she burned the dishes and did it on purpose. Describing his wife as a lying nymphomaniac attracted by money, she even claims that Samia was hitting him and raping him. No element corroborates the allegations of the spouse. "The one who rapes is not necessarily a monster but (is) the one who considers that he has a right of ownership over a person, that it is not really a woman, that it is an object," recalls in her pleading the lawyer of the civil party Agathe Grenouillet.

After two days of hearings and three hours of deliberation, at 1:30 a.m., Youcef was sentenced to ten years in prison. Samia, who was waiting for the judicial outcome to return to Morocco, will be able to prepare her trip.