Sexual violence in cases of torture, an additional punishment for being a woman

Abstract

In Mexico torture is viewed as a widespread problem. When there are acts of sexual violence during torture, the damages that they cause are added to the suffering and physical and psychological damage caused by the torture itself. We believe that this type of sexual assaults occurs frequently in torture perpetrated against women; this as an exercise of power and submission of the perpetrator to the victim. Situation that takes place within a context of domestic violence that prevails at national level, which considers that women can be raped and punished using her sexuality as a means to generate suffering. In this paper, we study the recommendations made on torture cases in the last five years by two defending organizations of human rights where a trend of sexual violence against women victims of torture was observed.