66 GENDER PERSPECTIVES ON TORTURE: Law and Practice instance, in the case of M.C. v. Bulgaria,57 the case of a young woman raped by three men, the ECtHR found that the facts constituted violations of Article 3 of the European Convention, but “without specifying whether they were torture or inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment.”58 The Court was similarly vague regarding female genital mutilation as it rises to the level of tor­ ture in the case of Coolins, et al. v. Sweden and domestic violence in Opuz v. Turkey. In Coolins, the two complainants asked for asylum in Sweden, alleging that if returned to Nigeria, they would be forced to undergo Feminine Genital Mutilation (FGM). The ECtHR while rejecting the complaint, stated that FGM falls under the scope of Article 3 of the Convention, but without specifying if it amounts to torture or other ill treatment. In Opuz, the complainant and her mother were subjected to repeated and escalating episodes of threats and domestic violence from her husband. They complained several times to the police, unsuccessfully. After a number of years, the violence culminated in the killing of the mother. The court found that the domestic violence suffered by the applicant in the form of phys­ ical and psychological harm were sufficiently serious to amount to ill-treatment within the meaning of Article 3. The Court stated that States have positive obligations under the Convention “to take measures designed to ensure that individuals within their jurisdiction are not subjected to torture or inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, including such ill-treatment administered by private individuals.”59 In the case O’Keeffe v. Ireland, regarding sexual abuse by a teacher to a girl when she was attend­ ing primary school, the Court found that this “ill-treatment” violated her rights under Article 3.60 A couple of years later, in the case M. and M. v. Croatia 61, the Court determined that the physical and psychological abuse of a father against her 9 year-old girl child, should be understood as a “degrading treatment” in breach of Article 3 of the Convention. The ECtHR made it clear that different forms of gender-based violence—rape, domestic vio­ lence, FGM etc.—conducted by a public official amount to torture or other inhuman or degrading ECtHR M.C. v. Bulgaria, Application No. 39272/98, Judgment of December 4, 2003. Miguel, Carmen, op. cit., p. 219. 59 ECtHR, Opuz v. Turkey, Application no. 33401/02) Judgment of June 9, 2009. 60 ECtHR O’Keeffe v. Ireland, application no. 35810/09), Judgment, Strasbourg, 28 January 2014. 61 ECtHR, M. and M. v. Croatia (Application no. 10161/13) Judgment, September 2015 “133. In the present case the applicants alleged that in the period between February 2008 and April 2011 the first applicant had been exposed to physical and psychological abuse by her father (see paragraph 52 above). In particular, they claimed that the first applicant’s father had sworn at her, uttered vulgar expressions against her, and called her names such as “stupid” or “cow”, and that he had threatened that he would cut off her long hair and ensure that she never saw or heard from her mother. They also claimed that he had frequently forced her to eat food she did not like and, when she refused, grabbed her chin and shoved the food in her mouth. He had sometimes even smeared the food all over her face. The applicants further claimed that the first applicant’s father had often threatened her with physical violence, had hit her on the leg with a hairbrush on one occasion, and had sometimes grabbed her arm and squeezed it so hard that she had bruises afterwards. This had culminated in the incident of 1 February 2011, when he had allegedly hit her in the face and squeezed her throat while verbally abusing her. 134. In this connection the Court itself notes that in her statements to the police, those given before various clinical experts and those before the forensic experts who examined her in the custody proceedings, the first applicant stated on a number of occasions that she was afraid of her father (see paragraphs 15, 19-20, 23, 28-29 and 32 above). She also stated, inter alia, that when her father had smeared the food over her face she had felt embarrassed because she had been made to look ugly (see paragraph 29 above). It follows that, if the applicants’ allegations are true, the abuse complained of instilled in the first applicant feelings of fear and shame, and on one occasion even caused her physical injury. 135. Therefore, the Court, having regard in particular to the first applicant’s young age (she was nine years old at the time of the incident of 1 February 2011), considers that the cumulative effect of all the above-described acts of domestic violence (see, mutatis mutandis, Sultan Öner and Others v. Turkey, no. 73792/01, § 134, 17 October 2006) would, if they were indeed perpetrated, render the treatment she was allegedly exposed to sufficiently serious to reach the threshold of severity required for Article 3 of the Convention to apply. Having regard to its case-law (see paragraph 132 above), the Court finds that such treatment could be regarded as “degrading”. 57 58