A/HRC/45/13/Add.3 which are often not classified, may contain information that can prove valuable to the investigation, including records of the acquisition of weapons, promotions and decorations granted, or health records. General population records from civil registries, cemeteries, institutes of legal medicine or hospitals can be similarly helpful.88 78. States should develop and implement policies for the disclosure and conservation of archive information. These policies should include the necessary human and material resources required to assess the information in the records, which should be done by specialized professionals, independent from the authorities of the institution that might be affected by the disclosed information. 79. Few States have taken significant steps towards declassifying their own sealed records, or towards the thorough research of public records. Other States have readily opened their confidential files regarding enforced disappearances, and this has drawn the families and civil society closer to the truth, and in many cases these files fed into criminal procedures.89 I. Policies for a differential approach in cases of disappearances of women 80. The experience of the Working Group demonstrates that the effects of enforced disappearances are lived and faced in different ways by women and girls owing to gender roles, which are deeply embedded in history, tradition, religion and culture.90 81. Women subjected to enforced disappearance are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence, including rape and forced pregnancy, as well as various forms of humiliation and physical and mental harm, which also fall within the definition of torture.91 82. Women and girls who suffer the enforced disappearance of a relative often face the loss of the primary or sole source of income in the family, which generates negative economic, social, psychological and legal effects. Women whose husbands have disappeared may be ostracized in the community because their husbands are falsely accused of crimes or because people fear associating with someone who has been the target of an enforced disappearance. Mothers, traditionally focused on seeking and claiming justice, are also often socially stigmatized and unfairly held accountable for not caring for their children.92 83. These circumstances require a gender-based approach to investigations, both within the framework of truth commissions and in the judicial, police and forensic institutions involved, which entails an even greater need for gender balance in the selection of those responsible for investigations,93 both at the operational level and at the highest levels of responsibility. States should provide specific resources in the processes of investigation for the analysis of the particular impact of enforced disappearances on women, in order to give greater visibility to this issue that is not always adequately addressed.94 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 16 See input by Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS) for this study, pp. 7–10. The records of human rights organizations have also proven very valuable, since they contain information on violations during periods when the information and actions of State authorities could not be trusted. The United States of America recently opened classified records related to human rights violations in Argentina, Chile, El Salvador and Guatemala. Records known as “The Archives of Terror” were found in Paraguay, with communications between military, security and intelligence officials that document, among other things, the transfer of disappeared persons between the countries that were part of “Operation Condor”: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. France and the Holy See have also initiated processes for the declassification of records, at the request of families from Argentina. A/HRC/WGEID/98/2, preamble. Ibid., para. 8. A/HRC/30/38/Add.5, para. 23. A/HRC/WGEID/98/2, paras. 23–24. A/HRC/19/58/Add.2, para. 67. With regard to the factors that contribute to the invisibility of these crimes and the lack of response from the judicial systems, see Lorena Balardini, Ana Oberlin y Laura Sobredo, “Violencia de género y abusos sexuales en centros clandestinos de detención: un aporte a la comprensión de la experiencia argentina”, p. 12 (in Spanish); and Ana Oberlin, “Respuestas judiciales