54 233. The Commission, for its part, has written that a rape not only violates the victim’s physical, mental ad moral integrity, but also intrudes into the most intimate areas of her private life, her physical and sexual space, and robs the victim of her ability to make her own independent decisions regarding her body.327 234. In the case of Guatemala’s armed conflict, the Commission notes that raping indigenous women was used by the Guatemalan Army as another method of destroying and annihilating the Mayan population. The CEH wrote the following concerning the rape of indigenous women: […] For the Maya women, the armed violence was compounded by gender violence and ethnic discrimination. […] […] Sexual rape was a widespread and systematic practice by State agents in the framework of the counterinsurgency strategy. Rape became a real weapon of terror, a gross violation of human rights and international humanitarian law. The immediate victims were mainly women and children, although men and boys were not spared. The rapes caused suffering and had profound aftereffects on both the immediate victims and their families, spouses and the entire community. It also had serious collective effects on the victims’ ethnic group. […]The rape act itself was attended by violations of many other rights. As a rule, the rapes – whether individual or selective- occurred in the context of the victims’ detention; what followed was often the victims’ death or disappearance. The cases of rapes on a mass scale or indiscriminate and public rapes occurred in areas with large indigenous populations; rapes became common practice when an outpost of military troops or PAC was installed; they also routinely preceded massacres or were part of scorched-earth operations. Pregnant women were raped, killed and their fetuses destroyed. […] Because of the modus operandi, rapes led to an exodus of women and scattered entire communities, breaking up marital and social relationships, and thus led to a sense of social isolation and community shame. It also drove women to abortion and infanticide, were an impediment to marriages and births within the group, which hastened the destruction of the 328 indigenous groups. […]. 235. In the cas d’espèce, it has been established that i) on January 8, 1982, Máxima Emiliana García Valey was raped by members of the Guatemalan Army; ii) on November 22, 1982, Gregoria Valey Ixtecoc was raped by members of the Guatemalan Army, who then murdered her and hung her body inside her home; and iii) Juana García Depaz was the victim of multiple rapes by a number of soldiers between October 1982 and June 1985, which twice left her pregnant. Having examined the entire case file in the context described above, the Commission considers that these three women’s rapes clearly were part of the Guatemalan State’s policy, specifically as regards the use of sexual violence. 236. The Commission therefore concludes that the Guatemalan State is responsible for violation of articles 5(1), 5(2) and 11 of the American Convention, read in conjunction with Article 1(1) and to detriment of Máxima Emiliana García Valey, Gregoria Valey Ixtecoc and Juana García Depaz. 327 IACHR, Report No. 53/01, Case 11.565, Merits, Ana, Beatriz and Celia González Pérez, Mexico, April 4, 2001, par. 328 Annex 3. CEH. Memory of Silence. Volume III, The Human Rights Violations and Acts of Violence, paragraphs 2350- 45. 2353.