Teresa Fernández Paredes 83 gation to the Victims to effectively investigate the acts of ill-treatment that impacted on their dignity and punish the perpetrators accordingly. Failing to do so only amounted to an infringement of the rights of the Victims under Article 5 of the Africa Charter and other international instruments that the Respondent State is a party to.”152 Other cases speak in more detail and specifically to certain aspects of States’ due diligence obligations in ‘communications’ which contained allegations of sexual violations done by private actors153. As an example, in a recent case from 2015, Equality Now and Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) v. Federal Republic of Ethiopia, the ACPHR condemned the State of Ethiopia for failing to prevent and protect a 13 year-old girl from “forced marriage by abduction coupled with rape”154. The case concerns a 13-year-old girl who was abducted and raped by various men on several occasions and was forced to sign a marriage contract with one of her abductors. The main aggressor was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and his four accomplices were each convicted of abduction and sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment. However, on appeal, different Courts, from the High Court of her district to the Supreme Court, overturned the conviction on the basis that the evidence suggested that the girl has given her consent for the acts155. The Commission clearly established that rape is a violation of Article 5 of the African Charter, but only in regard to the right to dignity and without linking it directly to torture156. However, its reasoning is worth mentioning: “In the Commission’s view, by rape, the victim is treated as a mere object of sexual gratification against his or her will and conscience. The victim is treated without regard for the personal autonomy and control over what happens to his or her body. By rape, the personal volition of the victim is gravely subverted and disregarded, and the victim is reduced from being a human being who has innate worth, value, significance and personal volition, to a mere object by which the perpetrator can meet his or her sadistic sexual urges. Inevitably, rape may, and often does, inflict physical pain and invokes in the victim a sense of helplessness, worthlessness, and gross debasement, which cause unimaginable mental anguish beyond the physical suffering. Clearly, rape degrades and humiliates the victim. Thus, even though not expressly listed under Article 5 of the Charter rape is one of the most repugnant affronts to human dignity and the range of ACHPR, Communication 323/06: Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and INTERIGHTS v. Egypt, paras. 163, 204-208. 153 Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum v. Zimbabwe, AfCommHPR, Comm. 245/02, Décision of 15 May 2006, available at http://www.achpr.org/files/sessions/39th/comunications/245.02/achpr39_245_02_ eng.pdf; and Sudan Human Rights Organisation & Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) v. Sudan, AfCommHPR, Comm. 279/03-296/05, Decision of 27 May 2009, available at http://www.achpr.org/files/ sessions/45th/comunications/279.03-296.05/achpr45_279.03_296.05_eng.pdf. 154 ACHPR Equality Now and Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA) v. Federal Republic of Ethiopia, Communication 341/2007. 155 To read more about the case, please visit: https://www.escr-net.org/caselaw/2016/ equality-now-and-ethiopian-women-lawyers-association-ewla-v-federal-republic-ethiopia 156 “Article 5 of the Charter guarantees that every individual shall have the right to respect of the dignity inherent in a human being. (…) It also entails that a human being is a moral agent possessed with the conscience and personal volition to decide what happens to his or her body. The right to respect of dignity is a guarantee that a human being should not be subjected to acts or omissions that degrade or humiliate him or her. (…) Article 5 of the Charter also enunciates the clear principle that all forms of degradation and exploitation of human beings shall be prohibited. It further provides for a sample of acts and omissions which in and of themselves amount to exploitation and degradation of a human being. These listed acts outright constitute violations of the dignity of a human being and are prohibited without reserve. Specifically: slavery, slave trade, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment are absolutely prohibited.” 152