152. On the issue of gender stereotyping, the Inter-American court has found that finds that it refers to a preconception of personal attributes, characteristics or roles that correspond or should correspond to either men or women.197 The Court has stated that the creation and use of stereotypes becomes one of the causes and consequences of gender-based violence against women.198 The Court has found that the duty not to discriminate is breached in cases where officials in charge of an investigation concerning the disappearance of—or violence against—women make statements that denote the existence of prejudice and stereotypes with regard to the role of women in society.199 153. As the Commission has already indicated, the line of inquiry that was given priority from the outset and on which the great majority of the activities of the relevant authorities centered, concerned the alleged responsibility of the Chilean citizen Juan Arancibia, Ms. Gutiérrez's supposed former partner. The Commission has already stated that the focus on this single hypothesis, to the exclusion of all others that emerged, constituted a violation of the duty to investigate with due diligence. In addition to that violation, the Commission considers that the references to this hypothesis in several parts of the record reflect gender stereotypes similar to those that have prompted the organs of the inter-American system to highlight their existence in other cases.200 154. Thus, according to articles in the press, the Director of the National Civil Police stated that Ms. Gutiérrez “was seen ... with her boyfriend” and that “she may have traveled to Mexico with her fiancé.” Likewise, the then-Minister of the Interior announced that “it could be a case of a crime of passion” or that she “left the country for personal reasons.” According to the statement of Sonia Toledo, a work colleague of Ms. Gutiérrez, a couple of days after her disappearance the state authorities were already suggesting as hypotheses that she had committed suicide, that she had gone off with her boyfriend, or that she had been taken by former guerrillas. The Commission finds that the judicial record contains nothing about the investigative procedures carried out to arrive at those theories. The commission also observes that the first prosecutor assigned to the case added that “everything that happened ... was planned by the missing woman” and that Renato del Cid, a former guerrilla fighter and friend of Ms. Gutiérrez with whom she had run off to Mexico, had been involved. On this latter point, the IACHR finds that the judicial record does not say what judicial procedures served as the basis for that hypothesis. Other reports and public statements in the course of the investigation contained opinions in which Ms. Gutiérrez alleged romantic involvement with more than one person, jealousy, and even a supposed fear of possible HIV infection continued to be considered motives for her disappearance. 155. The such language occurred in a context in Guatemala in which, as the Inter-American Court found, there were delays in investigating the disappearance of women and the authorities would: (1) fail to launch an immediate search for the victim and (2) blame the victim for what happened, thereby implying that she is somehow undeserving of state efforts to locate and protect her.201 156. This case epitomized that situation. As is noted above, in spite of the existence of objective leads to follow in other lines of inquiry that emerged from the record, the domestic authorities arbitrarily ignored those lines of inquiry and, instead, concentrated on the hypothesis concerning Ms. Gutiérrez's 197 I/A Court H.R., Case of González et al. (“Cotton Field”) v. Mexico. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 16, 2009. Series C No. 205. par. 401. 198 Cf. I/A Court H.R., Case of González et al. (“Cotton Field”) v. Mexico. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 16, 2009. Series C No. 205. pars. 400 and 401, and IACHR, Access to Justice for Women Victims of Violence in the Americas, OEA/Ser.L/V/II. Doc. 68, January 20, 2007. 199 I/A Court H.R., Case of Veliz Franco et al. v. Guatemala. Preliminary Objections, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of May 19, 2014. Series C No. 277, par. 212. 200 I/A Court H.R., Case of González et al. (“Cotton Field”) v. Mexico. Preliminary Objection, Merits, Reparations and Costs. Judgment of November 16, 2009. Series C No. 205. par. 208. 201 IACHR, Access to Justice for Women Victims of Violence in the Americas, OEA/Ser. L/V/II. doc.68, January 20, 2007, par. 135; Report No. 170/11, Case 12.578, Merits, María Isabel Véliz Franco et al., Guatemala, November 3, 2011, par. 188. 32