Chapter 8 • International Legal Standards for the Protection of Persons Deprived of Their Liberty the Convention, as an instrument for the protection of individual human beings”, article 3 must, like any other provision thereof, “be interpreted and applied so as to make its safeguards practical and effective”.28 ***** Some examples will be given below of behaviour that has been considered to violate the international prohibitions on torture and/or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment of people deprived of their liberty, or, exceptionally, in the execution of a punishment. 2.3.1 Rape as torture In the case of Aydin, to which reference was made above, the applicant, a Turkish citizen of Kurdish origin, was only 17 years old when, together with her father and sister-in-law, she was detained by security forces. She was raped and ill-treated during her detention. Accepting the findings of the European Commission of Human Rights as to the facts of the case, the Court held that “Rape of a detainee by an official of the State must be considered to be an especially grave and abhorrent form of ill-treatment given the ease with which the offender can exploit the vulnerability and weakened resistence of his victim. Furthermore, rape leaves deep psychological scars on the victim which do not respond to the passage of time as quickly as other forms of physical and mental violence. The applicant also experienced the acute pain of forced penetration, which must have left her feeling debased and violated both physically and emotionally.”29 The applicant had, moreover, been “subjected to a series of particularly terrifying and humiliating experiences while in custody at the hands of the security forces at Derik gendarmerie headquarters having regard to her sex and youth and the circumstances under which she was held”; she had been “... detained over a period of three days during which she must have been bewildered and disoriented by being kept blindfolded, and in a constant state of physical pain and mental anguish brought about by the beatings administered to her during questioning and by the apprehension of what would happen to her next. She was also paraded naked in humiliating circumstances thus adding to her overall sense of vulnerability and on one occasion she was pummelled with high-pressure water while being spun around in a tyre.”30 28 Ibid., para. 87; emphasis added. 29 Eur. Court HR, Aydin v. Turkey, judgment (Grand Chamber) of 25 September 1997, Reports 1997-VI, p. 1891, para. 83. 30 Ibid., para. 84. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 325