article 7 relates not only to acts that cause physical pain but also to acts that cause mental suffering to the victim‟.20 In its General Comment No. 28 on equality of men and women, the Human Rights Committee has also interpreted compliance with Article 7 of the ICCPR (torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment or Treatment) to require States to have laws on „domestic and other types of violence against women, including rape‟.21 69. In its General Recommendation No. 19, the CEDAW Committee also underscored that gender based violence impairs or nullifies the enjoyment by women of human rights and fundamental freedoms under general international law or under human rights conventions, including the right not to be subject to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.22 The Committee notes that rape constitutes degradation of women. Further, rape amounts to violence against women. The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women sets out the definition of violence against women in article 2, to include physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general community, including rape.23 70. Rape, especially for a child, has long-lasting and devastating effects that persist for years after the event.24 Survivors of childhood sexual trauma are at high risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, suicide, and other mental health problems.25 Childhood sexual trauma may also affect certain developmental processes, such as the ability to develop and maintain relationships. For instance, clinical observations have revealed that some adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse report problems with low sexual interest and few close relationships. In other cases, some survivors display high-risk sexual behaviours (e.g., promiscuity) that may be attributed, in part, to modelling some of the behaviours shaped earlier in life by the perpetrator.26 In many cases, childhood sexual abuses including rape have been correlated with higher levels of depression, guilt, shame, self-blame, eating disorders, somatic concerns, anxiety, dissociative patterns, repression, denial, sexual problems, and relationship problems.27 71. Article 16 of the ACRWC is clear in protecting children against all forms of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment and especially physical or mental injury or abuse, neglect or maltreatment including sexual abuse. The Committee notes that rape is the worst form of sexual abuse which has serious physical as well as psychological effects and that constitutes inhuman or degrading treatment as envisaged by article 16 (1) of the ACRWC. Article 16 (2) of the Charter lists protective measures that State Parties should take to protect children from acts of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. 72. One of the protective measures listed under Article 16 (2) is the establishment of special monitoring units to provide necessary support for the child who is victim of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment and for those who have the care of the child. The Committee notes that States are required to provide necessary support for the victims of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. The support envisaged by Article 16 (2) includes psycho-social as well as other supports that can heal physical and psychological harms sustained by the victim. 73. Article 16 (2) of the ACRWC also require States to devise means of prevention, identification, reporting, referral, investigation, treatment, and follow-up of instances of child abuse and neglect. In order to prevent children from acts of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, first States must identify vulnerable groups prone to child abuse and neglect and take special measures to prevent them from such kind of abuse. In cases where the children 20 See Human Rights Committee, General Comment no. 20, para 5. See Human Right Committee, General Comment No. 28, para 11. 22 CEDAW Committee (n 21 above) para 7. 23 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (n 22 above). 24 M Rosen, „Dealing with the Effects of Rape and Incest’, 2002, Chelsea House Publishers, p 15. 21 25 N Yuan, M Koss, et al, „The Psychological Consequences of Sexual Trauma‟, 2011, National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, available at http://www.vawnet.org/applied-researchpapers/print-document.php?doc_id=349, accessed on 17 February 2018. 26 Yuan, Koss, et al, (n 31 above). 27 M hall and J Hall „The Long-Term Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Counseling Implications‟ available at https://www.counseling.org/...sexual-abuse/long-term-effects-of-childhood-sexual-abu... (accessed on 15 January 2018). 14