17 89. According to testimony documented by the CVR, several medical examiners who attended to victims of sexual violence at the DINCOTE acted in complicity with the assailants, performing superficial examinations and, in many cases, submitting the victims to humiliations and degrading 61 procedures. The professional misconduct of medical examiners has particularly serious consequences in rape cases, in that they ensure the crime’s impunity. In one obvious case of rape, the examiner’s report merely stated that “The person of María Magdalena Monteza Benavides shows signs of recent 62 bruising in the region of the left knee.” 90. The cases recorded by the CVR include some in which women claim to have suffered sexual violence at the hands of the medical examiners who attended to them after they had been tortured 63 and raped by DINCOTE agents. 91. In its reports on individual cases, the IACHR has said that during the internal armed conflict in Peru, numerous acts of sexual violence were carried out by the security forces, particularly in 64 the emergency zones. The IACHR notes that the vast majority of these incidents were never punished, either because of the shame felt by the victims or their fear of lodging a complaint, or because of the obstacles and deceptions put in place by the authorities of the military justice system in investigations into 65 serious human rights violations. 92. In a March 1997 publication, Amnesty International said that in the context of the Peruvian internal armed conflict, “rape and sexual abuse of women [were] used by members of the 66 security forces as an instrument of torture.” Similarly, Human Rights Watch noted that in spite of the widespread use of sexual violence in the counterinsurgency effort, only a very small number of members 67 of the National Police and the armed forces were prosecuted. D. Specific facts deemed proven by the Commission 1. The violent arrest and failure to record Gladys Carol Espinoza’s admission to the premises of the DIVISE 93. Gladys Carol Espinoza Gonzales was born in the city of Lima on June 3, 1953. She was 68 the oldest of the seven children of Teodora Gonzales Vda. de Espinoza and Fausto Espinoza León. Upon finishing high school, she secured a scholarship from the Cultural Association of the Union of Soviet 61 Final Report of the CVR, 2003, Vol. VI, 1.5 Sexual Violence against Women, pp. 372 to 374, available at: www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/index.php. 62 Final Report of the CVR, 2003, Vol. VI, 1.4 Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment, p. 224, available at: www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/index.php. 63 Final Report of the CVR, 2003, Vol. VI,1.5 Sexual Violence against Women, p. 373, available at: www.cverdad.org.pe/ifinal/index.php. 64 IACHR, Report No. 5/96, Case 10.970, Raquel Martín de Mejía, Peru, March 1, 1996, Section B, Considerations on the Substance of the Case. 65 IACHR, Report No. 5/96, Case 10.970, Raquel Martín de Mejía, Peru, March 1, 1996, Section B, Considerations on the Substance of the Case. 66 Amnesty International, Women’s Human Rights: In Memory of María Elena Moyano, March 1997, available at: www.amnesty.org/es/library/asset/AMR46/003/1997/es/847cc62c-eab6-11dd-9f63-e5716d3a1485/amr460031997es.html. 67 Human Rights Watch, The Human Rights Watch Global Report on Women’s Human Rights, p. 72, available at: www.wwda.org.au/hrwgolbalrept1.pdf. 68 Annex 2: Psychological Examination Report No. 003737-2004-PSC, produced by the Legal Medicine Institute after interviewing Gladys Carol Espinoza, February 9 and 10, 2004, narrative section; enclosed with the State’s communication of December 5, 2006, and received by the IACHR on December 6 of that year.