Certain forms of abuses in health-care settings that may cross a threshold of mistreatment that is tantamount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment 2013, para. 76
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The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has concluded that homophobic ill-treatment on the part of health professionals is unacceptable and should be proscribed and denounced. There is an abundance of accounts and testimonies of persons being denied medical treatment, subjected to verbal abuse and public humiliation, psychiatric evaluation, a variety of forced procedures such as sterilization, State-sponsored forcible anal examinations for the prosecution of suspected homosexual activities, and invasive virginity examinations conducted by health-care providers, hormone therapy and genital-normalizing surgeries under the guise of so called "reparative therapies". These procedures are rarely medically necessary, can cause scarring, loss of sexual sensation, pain, incontinence and lifelong depression and have also been criticized as being unscientific, potentially harmful and contributing to stigma (A/HRC/14/20, para. 23). The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women expressed concern about lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex women as "victims of abuses and mistreatment by health service providers" (A/HRC/19/41, para. 56).
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Non-negotiated soft law
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Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment