82 women’s human rights equate gender-based torture and ill-treatment.341 264. The Court has already emphasized the vulnerability to torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of individuals in institutional setting such as public and private hospitals, because the medical personnel in charge of patient care exercise strong control or power over those in their care.342 When torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are inflicted on those individuals, it affects their mental, physical and moral integrity and is an affront to their dignity, as well as a serious constraint to their autonomy. 343 Similarly, the Court has stressed the important role of physicians and other health-care professionals in safeguarding personal integrity and preventing torture and ill-treatment.344 265. Evidently, the context of health-care services may signify a greater risk of women being subjected to acts contrary to Article 5(2) of the American Convention, especially in relation to those practices or policies addressed primarily against women, which affect them disproportionately, or those that women are particularly vulnerable to, owing to negative or prejudicial gender-based stereotypes, including the social and cultural assignation to women of responsibility for reproductive functions and for contraception. In this regard, the Committee against Torture has recognized that the situations in which women run the risk of being subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, include medical treatment, particularly involving reproductive decisions.345 266. The Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has stated that compulsory sterilization adversely affects women's physical and mental health. 346 In the case of an involuntary sterilization, the European Court has also recognized that this was liable to arouse feelings of fear, anguish and inferiority and entail lasting suffering, and that the victim may feel degraded and humiliated on finding this out, as well as suffering depression and feelings of isolation and humiliation.347 The Inter-American Court considers that non-consensual or involuntary sterilization may cause severe mental and physical suffering by permanently ending a woman’s reproductive capacity, causing infertility, and imposing serious and lasting physical changes without her consent. 267. This Court has indicated that the violation of a person’s right to physical and mental integrity has diverse connotations of degree, which range from torture to other types of abuse or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, the physical and mental effects of which vary in intensity based on endogenous and exogenous factors (including duration of the treatment, age, sex, health situation, context, and vulnerability), which must be analyzed in each specific situation.348 In other words, the Cf. UN, Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez, A/HRC/31/57, January 5, 2016, paras. 5 and 9. 341 342 Cf. Case of Ximenes Lopes v. Brazil, supra, paras. 106 and 107. 343 Cf. Case of Ximenes Lopes v. Brazil, supra, para. 106. Cf. Case of Tibi v. Ecuador, supra, paras. 152 to 156; Case of Montero Aranguren et al. (Retén de Catia) v. Venezuela. Merits reparations and costs. Judgment of July 5, 2006. Series C No. 150, para. 102, and Case of Díaz Peña v. Venezuela. Preliminary objection, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of June 26, 2012. Series C No. 244, para. 137. 344 Cf. UN, Committee against Torture, General Comment No. 2, Application of Article 2 by the States Parties, January 24, 2008, para. 22. 345 Cf. UN, Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General Recommendation No. 19, Violence against women, 1992, para. 22. 346 Cf. ECHR, Case of V.C. v. Slovakia, No. 18968/07. Judgment of November 8, 2011, para. 118; Case of N.B. v. Slovakia, No. 29518/10. Judgment of June 12, 2012, para. 80, and Case of I.G., M.K. and R.H. v. Slovakia, No. 15966/04. Judgment of November 13, 2012, para. 123 (evidence file, volume VIII, annexes 26, 27 and 28 to the brief with motions, pleadings and evidence, folios 2474 to 2577). 347 348 Cf. Case of Loayza Tamayo v. Peru. Merits, supra, paras. 57 and 58, and Case of Herrera Espinoza et al. v. Ecuador,