64 GENDER PERSPECTIVES ON TORTURE: Law and Practice The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court) reached similar conclusions in the case of the Miguel Castro Castro Prison v. Peru42. The Court recognized for the first time that men and women experience torture and suffering in different ways, given that there may be different objec­ tives or forms of torture depending on the sex of the person. The Court considered a document by a third party which stated that: “q) “[t]here is no torture that does not take the victim’s gender into account. There is no […] ‘neutral’ torture […]. Even when a form of torture is not ‘specific’ for women […] its effects will have specific results on women.” Due to the aforementioned, “even though not all forms of violence in this case were specific for women, […] it constitute[d] a gender violence since it was directed […] to attacking female identity;”43 The IACHR Court also considered that the forced nudity to which the detained women were subjected was a violation of the personal dignity of the victims and constituted sexual violence in and of itself. Following international jurisprudence and the Belem do Para Convention, the Court affirmed that sexual violence includes acts of a sexual nature which may or may not include pene­ tration or physical contact of any kind. The Court found, “that the acts of sexual violence to which an inmate was submitted under an alleged finger vaginal “examination” (supra para. 309) consti­ tuted sexual rape that due to its effects constituted torture. Therefore, the State is responsible for the violation of the right to humane treatment enshrined in Article 5(2) of the American Convention.”44 In the more recent cases of Rosendo Cantú et al. v. Mexico and Fernández Ortega et al. v. Mexico, both the Court and the Commission applied a differentiated perspective to crimes of inhuman treatment (art. 5) depending on the victims’ gender, age, and ethnicity, which allowed the Court to deter­ mine the degree of seriousness of the sexual violence used as a means of torture.45 In addition to the Court’s consideration of the intersectional nature of discrimination, its analysis of the crime of rape as torture is of particular interest because of the analysis the Court does of the elements of the crime. In the Rosendo Cantú case, the Court considered that “rape, like torture, pursues the objective of intimidating, degrading, humiliating, punishing or controlling the victim.” It went on to say that “an act of torture may be perpetrated both through acts of physical violence and acts that cause acute mental or moral suffering to the victim. (...) Indeed, the after-effects of rape do not always involve physical injuries or disease. Women victims of rape also experience severe trauma and psychological and social consequences.”46 Regarding the element of intention required to prove the 42 IACHR Court. Case of the Miguel Castro Castro Prison v. Peru. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 26, 2006, para. 224. In the Miguel Castro Castro Prison case, the Court analyzed events that occurred in the prison as a result of an operation in which over 300 prisoners were subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. The Court noted that men and women received different treatment, and that women were subjected to sexual violence. Paragraph 224 reads that “It has been acknowledged that during domestic and international armed conflicts the confronting parties used sexual violence against women as a means of punishment and repression. The use of State power to breach the rights of women in a domestic conflict, besides affecting them directly, may have the purpose of causing an effect in society through those breaches and send a message or give a lesson.” 43 IACHR Court. Case of the Miguel Castro Castro Prison v. Peru [online]. Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 25, 2006, para. 260. http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_160_esp.pdf 44 Ibid, para. 312. 45 In the Fernandez Ortega case, the Court cited the Commission, which established that “In cases involving the rape of indigenous women, the pain and humiliation is exacerbated because they are indigenous, since they do not know the language of their attackers and of the authorities that intervene [, and] also owing to the repudiation of their community as a result of the facts.” IACHR Court. Case of Fernández Ortega et al. v. Mexico. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of August 30, 2010. Series C. No. 215, para. 90. 46 IACHR Court. Case of Rosendo Cantú et al. v. Mexico Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of August 31, 2010. Series C. No. 216.