A French court is facing heavy backlash from children's rights groups after deciding an 11 year old girl consented to sex with a 28-year-old man.
The man was charged with rape but prosecutors say there's no violence or evidence to justify the violence of rape.
Prosecutors deemed the child had engaged in a consensual " sexual relationship" with the man, leading to immediate backlash from children's rights groups.
France correspondent Catherine Field says the man has now been charged with sexual abuse of a minor instead.
"The law does not account for rape for someone under 15, if there is no evidence of violence then it is just sexual offences," she told Mike Hosking.
The case centred on allegations the man lured the girl from a park in the northern Paris suburb of Montmagny to his nearby home in April.
The Local news outlet reported the man allegedly raped her. The girl's family said she was "paralysed" by fear and "unable to defend herself".
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Rights group Le Voix de l'Enfant said in a statement: "The question of consent or its absence should never even be asked when it comes to rape victims who are minors".
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There are now calls for French legislators to introduce a legal age under which sexual consent cannot be presumed.
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