On it rests the entire legal framework of the national and international public order, and it permeates all legal systems.156 149. The principle of equal protection and nondiscrimination should be understood in the sense of incorporating two concepts: “(...) a negative concept related to the prohibition of arbitrary differentiation of treatment, and an affirmative concept related to the obligation of States Party to create real equal conditions toward groups who have been historically excluded or who are exposed to a greater risk of being discriminated.”157 150. Article 7 of the Convention of Belem do Pará requires States to apply due diligence to prevent, investigate, and impose penalties for violence against women. Article 6(b) of the Convention includes the right of women to live lives free of violence and be valued and educated free of stereotyped patterns of behavior and social and cultural practices based on concepts of inferiority or subordination. Thus, the State obligations derived from Article 7 of the Convention of Belem do Pará must be read in the sense of including these types of situations in the concept of violence against women, and therefore, the obligations derived from that article are applicable to situations of prejudice and discriminatory stereotypes. Specifically, both the IACHR and the InterAmerican Court have addressed the negative impacts of stereotypes in the framework of criminal investigations and underscored that they violate the duty of nondiscrimination. 151. Regarding the concept of gender stereotypes, the Inter-American Court has stated that “(...) gender stereotyping refers to a preconception of personal attributes, characteristics or roles that correspond or should correspond to either men or women. (...) the subordination of women can be associated with practices based on persistent socially-dominant gender stereotypes, a situation that is exacerbated when the stereotypes are reflected, implicitly or explicitly, in policies and practices and, particularly, in the reasoning and language of the judicial police authorities (...).158 152. Both the IACHR and the Inter-American Court have identified a series of negative impacts that stereotypes and gender stereotypes can have in the framework of criminal investigations summarized as follows: (i) improper assessment of evidence that is based on ideas that generalize social behavior and roles; (ii) the closure of potential lines of investigation into circumstances of the case and identification of the perpetrators; 159 (iii) the lack of exhaustive analysis of the scene of a crime and failures in the collection, documentation, and preservation of evidence, as well as irregularities in forensic medical examinations; (iv) failure to take investigative steps as a result of judgments regarding the social behavior of men and women;160 (v) tacit assumptions that women are responsible for the facts because of the way they dress, their jobs, their sexual behavior, etc.,161 or convictions based on negative stereotypes of certain groups that invite attribution of criminal responsibility.162 153. For its part, the Court has also addressed the concept of the intersectionality of discrimination, meaning a simultaneous intersection or concurrence of multiple causes of discrimination that, as a result of interaction and synergy, produces a specific form of discrimination with combined effects that transform the Inter-American Court. Case of Flor Freire v. Ecuador. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment dated August 31, 2016. Series C No. 315. Para. 109. 157 Inter-American Court. Case of Furlan and relatives v. Argentina. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of August 31, 2012. Series C No. 246. Para. 267. 158 Inter-American Court. Case of González et al. (“Cotton Field”) v. Mexico. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 16, 2009. Series C No. 205, para. 401. 159 IACHR Report No. 13/15, Case 12.349, Admissibility and Merits, Mayra Angelina Gutiérrez Hernández and family, Guatemala, March 23, 2015, para. 157; Inter-American Court, Case of Veliz Franco et al. vs. Guatemala. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of May 19, 2014. Series C No. 277, párr.213. 160 Inter-American Court, Case of Velásquez Paiz et al. v. Guatemala. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of November 19, 2015. Series C No. 307, párr.191 161 IACHR, Access to Justice for Women who are Victims of Violence in the Americas. OEA/SER.L/V/II. Doc. 68. January 20, 2007, para. 155. 162 Inter-American Court. Norín Catrimán et al. (Leaders, Members and Activist of the Mapuche Indigenous People) v. Chile Merits, Reparations, and Costs. Judgment of May 29, 2014. Series C No. 279, párr.223. 156 29