A
French woman who enslaved and abused her ex-boyfriend for more than a year has
been jailed for 18 months.
Zakia
Medkour, now 43, met Maxime Gaget, 37, over the internet in 2007 and he moved
into her Paris studio flat some months later.
But
within months he had lost his job and she had taken away his credit and
identity cards.
Cigarettes
were stubbed out on his skin and he was forced to swallow sponges and
window-cleaning fluid.
The
case, seen in France as helping to lift a taboo on domestic abuse suffered by
men, came to prominence when Mr Gaget wrote about his experiences in a book, My
partner, my torturer.
French
campaign groups say abuse by men against women is three times more common, but
say as many as 7,000 men complain of abuse every year.
Domestic
abuse claims the lives of one woman ever three days and one man every 13 days,
they estimate.