A/HRC/7/3 page 14 of the world they are still trivialized and the comparison between them and “classic” torture will raise awareness with regard to the level of atrocity that they can reach. Third, stating that these forms of violence can amount to torture if States fail to act with due diligence, illustrates the parallels between torture and other forms of violence against women. (a) Intimate partner violence41 45. As with female detainees who experience torture, battered wives may be beaten with hands and objects, kicked, strangled, stabbed or burned. Rape and other forms of sexual abuse are used by intimate partners as well as by prison guards or police officers. In both scenarios, physical violence is usually accompanied by insults, varied forms of humiliation, and threats to kill or harm the victim or her family members (often children). Domestic violence, as well as torture, tends to escalate over time, sometimes resulting in death or leaving women’s bodies mutilated or permanently disfigured. Women who experience such violence, whether in their homes or in a prison, suffer depression, anxiety, loss of self-esteem and a feeling of isolation. Indeed, battered women may suffer from the same intense symptoms that comprise the post-traumatic stress disorder identified in victims of official torture as well as by victims of rape.42 Another parallel between privately battering women and torture, which refers back to the element of powerlessness, is the intention to keep the victim in a permanent state of fear based on unpredictable violence by seeking to reduce the person to submission and destroy his/her capacity for resistance and autonomy with the ultimate aim of achieving total control. 46. State acquiescence in domestic violence can take many forms, some of which may be subtly disguised. For instance, “Civil laws that appear to have little to do with violence also have an impact on women’s ability to protect themselves and assert their rights. Laws that restrict women’s right to divorce or inheritance, or that prevent them from gaining custody of their children, receiving financial compensation or owning property, all serve to make women dependent upon men and limit their ability to leave a violent situation.”43 The Special Rapporteur considers that States should be held accountable for complicity in violence against women, whenever they create and implement discriminatory laws that may trap women in abusive circumstances. State responsibility may also be engaged if domestic laws fail to provide adequate protection against any form of torture and ill-treatment in the home. For instance, in the case of A. v. the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights considered a complaint concerning a minor whose stepfather had repeatedly beaten him. The stepfather had been acquitted by domestic courts under the defence of “reasonable chastisement” as provided under English law. The Court, referring to the beatings, found that “treatment of this kind reaches the 41 See E/CN.4/1996/53, para. 50. 42 For a comparison between official torture and domestic violence see Rhonda Copelon, “Recognizing the egregious in the everyday: domestic violence as torture”, Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 1994. 43 Not a minute more: Ending violence against women, UNIFEM, New York, 2003, p. 43.