constituted torture. Accordingly, it held that the rapes “surely constitute infliction of severe pain and suffering perpetrated for a number of impermissible purposes, including interrogation, punishment, retaliation and discrimination based on gender” and therefore considered that “sexual abuse by the police in this case constitutes torture”. 192 Two, it debunked the notion that torture has to occur in official places of detention, ruling that ‘the complainant was clearly under the physical control of the police even though the acts concerned were perpetrated outside formal detention facilities…”.’193 5.3.3 Limitations and Opportunities One of the major limitations of UNCAT to address women’s experience of sexual violence is the restriction in the definition of torture in Article 1. The definition explicitly states that the pain or suffering must have been inflicted or instigated by or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or by person(s) acting in official capacity. Women’s experience of violence is often at the hands of non-State actors and feminists have criticised this emphasis on violence by public official as excluding women from the highest protection afforded in international law. 194 CAT’s previous case law on the issue shows a rather narrow or a literal approach to the interpretation and application of the public official requirement. In G.R.B v. Sweden,195 the applicant had been raped by members of the non-State group Shining Path and claimed fear of violence or reprisal. The CAT held that if a person claims risks of violence by a nongovernmental entity that is not acting with the consent or acquiescence of the government, it does not attract the protection of Article 3 of the UNCAT. The decision has been criticised for not adequately addressing the issue of acquiescence. The CAT did not, in this case, ascertain if the rapes by the non-governmental entity were the result of State inaction to reports of rapes generally and by Shining Path in particular. 196 Similarly, in S.V. et. al. v. Canada197 in which the complainant feared violence from LTTE upon return to Sri Lanka, the CAT held that the government of Sri Lanka did not support the actions of LTTE and therefore did not consent or acquiesce to LTTE’s actions. The fact that LTTE had a quasi-governmental status with complete control over a particular territorial area and therefore could be characterised as “other persons acting in official capacity” was completely missed. In another case of Elmi v. Australia,198 Somali warring factions were indeed characterised as acting in an official capacity because of their effective control of the State and lack of central government. Lack of central government is the norm rather than an exception in States facing armed opposition and such a criteria to establish the official capacity of non-State actors makes applying international human rights laws to situations of internal armed conflicts or States confronting armed opposition extremely difficult. The existing jurisprudence of the CAT therefore “does not protect women against brutal rapes or mass killings by rebel soldiers, for example, except where it can be said that the soldiers were in effective control of the territory and there was no central government”.199 192 Ibid., ¶ 8.10. 193 Ibid. 194 Katherine Fortin, Rape as Torture – An evaluation of the Committee against Torture’s attitude to sexual violence, Utrecht Law review, Vol4, Issue 3, December 2008, pp.145. 195 G.R.B. v. Sweden, CAT Comm. No. 83/1997 (15 May 1998). 196 McCorquodale R. and R. La Forgia, ‘Taking Off the Blindfolds: Torture by Non-State Actors’ (2001) 1 Hum. Rts L. Rev. 189, pps. 209-210. 197 S.V. et. Al. v. Canada, CAT Comm. No. 49/1996 15 May 2001. 198 Elmi v. Australia, CAT Comm. No. 120/1998 14 May 1999. 199 Supra note 1 at pp.249. 52 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES | REDRESS