CCPR/C/130/D/3599/2019 voiced similar views, and have also expressed concern about the failure to implement the recommendations of the United Nations treaty bodies. 17 3.4 Thirdly, the authors argue that the communication is admissible as it does not represent an abuse of the right of submission. Since 2006, they have submitted numerous complaints to both the Spanish and Argentine authorities and have continued to use every domestic opportunity that appeared to present itself in administrative channels in order to search for the remains of their relatives and obtain reparation, the last action dating back to May 2018. The authors are approaching the Committee a few months after the exhaustion of their last administrative challenge and less than a year and a half after the dismissal of their last legal challenge, having attempted every possible action to determine the whereabouts of their loved ones and obtain truth, justice and reparation and having given the State party numerous opportunities to meet its obligations. 3.5 The authors claim that the facts of the present case constitute a continuing violation by the State party of the rights of Ms. J.V. and Mr. A.M. under articles 6, 7, 9 and 16 of the Covenant, read in conjunction with article 2 (3). With regard to article 7, they specify that persons who are detained before being disappeared are subjected to merciless treatment, including all kinds of abuse, torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and, at the very least, suffer the anguish of not knowing what might happen to them. With regard to article 16, they specify that the intentional removal of a person from the protection of the law and the obstruction of the investigations by the State authorities constitute a refusal to recognize that person’s legal personality. They specify that article 2 (3) imposes an obligation to investigate that gives rise to a continuing violation while it remains unfulfilled even if the disappeared person may be presumed dead, since this presumption does not remove the procedural obligation to investigate in order to clarify and explain the circumstances of the disappearance. 3.6 Furthermore, the authors maintain that a gender perspective is essential to understanding the case as Ms. J.V. was seven months pregnant at the time of the disappearance and was a victim of sexual abuse (see paras. 2.4 and 2.11 above). They point out that not only did a specific form of violence emerge, in response to the view that women had caused Spain’s destruction by undermining traditional female roles, whereby women suffered reprisals for being Republicans or adhering to politically progressive or communist movements, 18 but also that women were subjected to violence for the so-called crime of “consorting”, that is, being a relative of men who were ideologically opposed to the regime. The authors also cite various studies on the gender perspective in enforced disappearances, highlighting that the violation is aggravated when victims are pregnant at the time of the disappearance as they are fearful about their health and the possibility that they might give birth in inhumane circumstances that may result in the loss of the child at the hands of State officials.19 17 18 19 GE.21-06035 European Parliament, Mission report and recommendations following the fact-finding visit to Spain conducted on 22–23 May 2017, (23 November 2017), p. 27, para. 15; Council of Europe, Missing persons and victims of enforced disappearance in Europe (2016), pp. 21 and 22, and Recommendation 1736 (2006), “Need for international condemnation of the Franco regime”, para. 8.2.2. The authors refer to Mirta Núñez Díaz-Balart, Mujeres caídas. Prostitutas legales y clandestinas en el franquismo, Madrid, Oberón, 2003; Enrique González Duro, Las rapadas. El franquismo contra la mujer, Madrid, Editorial Siglo XXI, 2012; Maud Joly, “Las violencias sexuadas de la Guerra Civil española: paradigma para una lectura cultural del conflicto”, in Historia Social, No. 61 (2008) pp. 89– 107; Pura Sánchez, “Individuas de dudosa moral”, in Raquel Osborne (ed.), Mujeres bajo sospecha. Memoria y sexualidad (1930–1980), fourth ed., Madrid, Fundamentos, 2013. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, General comment on women affected by enforced disappearances (A/HRC/WGEID/98/2); Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendations Nos. 19 (1992) and 35 (2017); Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Gelman v. Uruguay, judgment of 24 February 2011, merits and reparations, para. 97, Series C No. 221; International Center for Transitional Justice, Las desaparecidas y las invisibles. Repercusiones de la desaparición forzada en las mujeres, 2015; Ariel Dulitzky and Catalina Lagos, “Jurisprudencia Interamericana sobre desaparición forzada y mujeres: la timida e inconsistente aparición de la perspectiva de género”, Lecciones y Ensayos, No. 94 (2015), pp. 45–94. 7