secured a safe termination of pregnancy on the grounds that the foetus was not viable. She states that the refusal to provide a legal abortion service left her with two options which posed an equal risk to her health and safety: to seek clandestine (and hence highly risky) abortion services, or to continue a dangerous and traumatic pregnancy which put her life at risk. as recognized in article 24 of the Covenant and in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 3.7 The author claims a violation of article 24, since she did not receive the special care she needed from the health authorities, as an adolescent girl. Neither her welfare nor her state of health were objectives pursued by the authorities which refused to carry out an abortion on her. The author points out that the Committee laid down in its general comment No. 17, relating to article 24, that the State should also adopt economic, social and cultural measures to safeguard this right. For example, every possible economic and social measure should be taken to reduce infant mortality and to prevent children from being subjected to acts of violence or cruel or inhuman treatment, among other possible violations. 3.4 The author claims a violation of article 7 of the Covenant. The fact that she was obliged to continue with the pregnancy amounts to cruel and inhuman treatment, in her view, since she had to endure the distress of seeing her daughter’s marked deformities and knowing that her life expectancy was short. She states that this was an awful experience which added further pain and distress to that which she had already borne during the period when she was obliged to continue with the pregnancy, since she was subjected to an “extended funeral” for her daughter, and sank into a deep depression after her death. 3.8 The author claims a violation of article 26, arguing that the Peruvian authorities’ position that hers was not a case of therapeutic abortion, which is not punishable under the Criminal Code, left her in an unprotected state incompatible with the assurance of the protection of the law set out in article 26. The guarantee of the equal protection of the law implies that special protection will be given to certain categories of situation in which specific treatment is required. In the present case, as a result of a highly restrictive interpretation of the criminal law, the health authorities failed to protect the author and neglected the special protection which her situation required. 3.5 The author points out that the Committee has stated that the prohibition in article 7 of the Covenant relates not only to physical pain but also to mental suffering, and that this protection is particularly important in the case of minors. 1 She points out that, after considering Peru’s report in 1996, the Committee expressed the view that restrictive provisions on abortion subjected women to inhumane treatment, in violation of article 7 of the Covenant, and that in 2000, the Committee reminded the State party that the criminalization of abortion was incompatible with articles 3, 6 and 7 of the Covenant.2 3.9 The author claims that the administration of the health centre left her without protection as a result of a restrictive interpretation of article 119 of the Criminal Code. She adds that the text of the law contains nothing to indicate that the exception relating to therapeutic abortion should apply only in cases of danger to physical health. But the hospital authorities had drawn a distinction and divided up the concept of health, and had thus violated the legal principle that no distinction should be drawn where there is none in the law. She points out that health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”, so that when the Peruvian Criminal Code refers to health, it does so in the broad and allembracing sense, protecting both the physical and the mental health of the mother. 3.6 The author claims a violation of article 17, arguing that this article protects women from interference in decisions which affect their bodies and their lives, and offers them the opportunity to exercise their right to make independent decisions on their reproductive lives. The author points out that the State party interfered arbitrarily in her private life, taking on her behalf a decision relating to her life and reproductive health which obliged her to carry a pregnancy to term, and thereby breaching her right to privacy. She adds that the service was available, and that if it had not been for the interference of State officials in her decision, which enjoyed the protection of the law, she would have been able to terminate the pregnancy. She reminds the Committee that children and young people enjoy special protection by virtue of their status as minors, State party’s failure to cooperate under article 4 of the Optional Protocol 4. On 23 July 2003, 15 March 2004 and 25 October 2004, reminders were sent to the State party inviting it to submit information to the Committee concerning the admissibility and the merits of the complaint. The Committee notes that no such information has been received. It regrets that the State party has not supplied any information concerning the admissibility or the merits of the 1 Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 20, paras. 2 and 5. 2 Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee: Peru, 15 November 2000 (CCPR/CO/70/PER), para. 20. 110