CEDAW/C/74/D/126/2018 two children, and D.L. has not been informed why this was allowed to occur. The impact on D.L.’s children of being born into a family subject to control and deceit by an officer has fundamentally interfered with their formative years and identities. D.L. also considers that the deceit that led to the conception and birth of her children was part of the pattern of coercive control to which the officer subjected her. 3.8 In violation of article 7 (c) of the Convention, the authors were identified and targeted on the basis of their gender and activities in political organizations. The State’s failure to prevent undercover officers from initiating sexual relationships with the women in organizations that they are targeting inhibits the ability of women to participate in non-governmental organizations and associations concerned with the public and political life of the country on equal terms with men. The fear of being deceived into an intimate relationship with an officer inhibits the exercise by women of their fundamental freedoms of political association and full participation in public life. The lack of due diligence by the State party to prevent officers from initiating sexual relationships with politically active women discourages women from exercising their right to freedom of expression and assembly on the basis of equality with men, and fundamentally undermines their dignity and autonomy. 3.9 Lastly, in violation of article 16 (a), (b) and (e) of the Convention, the State party denied the authors the right to freely choose their partners. They could not have provided informed consent when entering into the long-term, intimate relationships, and would not have entered into these relationships had they known that their partners were undercover officers tasked by the State party to spy on them. The State party also knew that the officers would disappear at the end of their lengthy deployments, and that there was clearly no prospect of lifelong partnerships with or without children. The authors’ relationships with the officers deprived them of the right to freely decide on the number, timing and spacing of their children and had a significant impact on their reproductive rights. D.L. had two children with the officer that she would not have had if she had known that he was an officer when they first began their relationship, and if she had not subsequently been subjected to his deceitful and controlling behaviour upon his return. Several of the authors lost the option to have biological children, owing to the timing of the relationships in terms of their optimum childbearing years and to the impact on their subsequent ability to trust and thereby form a new relationship. Other authors had children much later in life than they would have chosen. The policy/practice thus had a significant impact on the authors ’ reproductive rights, as it violated their ability to make choices about reproduction and give informed consent for both sexual relations and entering into family life. The targeting of women in this way has a disproportionate effect, given their limited childbearing years. 3.10 The remedies provided by the State party are inadequate. Restitution is incomplete because the authors have not been provided with information about the extent of the surveillance to which they were subject. The authors need that information in order to put their experience of violation behind them. In addition, neither the officers nor their supervisors have been punished for the abuses that they committed. Similarly, the authors have not received rehabilitation; they cannot achieve psychological well-being owing to the fact that they have been refused the complete information about what happened to them and have not received clear reassurance that they are able to continue their lives without surveillance or intrusion. Satisfaction has not been achieved; although an apolo gy was given, the applicants asked for it to include a recognition of institutionalized sexism by the State. The Metropolitan Police Service refused to include such recognition in its apology. Lastly, the State has not committed itself to giving guarantees of non-repetition, and the laws that permitted the use of intimate relationships with undercover officers as a method of spying on protesters remain unchanged. 6/15 19-22187