CEDAW/C/89/D/170/2021 justiciability, availability, accessibility and the provision of remedies for victims are among the components necessary to ensure access to justice with an intersectional and intercultural gender perspective. 25 For Indigenous and rural women, the remoteness of their areas of residence, illiteracy and lack of knowledge of existing laws and judicial avenues constitute obstacles to their access to justice. The Committee also takes note of the fact that, in this particular case, the authors were not given access to information before, during or after the procedure. The Committee further takes note of the difficulties faced by the authors, who are rural women of limited means and victims of forced sterilization, in gaining access to the relevant remedies at the appropriate time, and notes that criminal proceedings offer no guarantee of redress and that no other legal mechanism is in place to ensure adequate reparations. 26 The Committee notes that no victim is required to pursue multiple avenues for redress in order for domestic remedies to be considered exhausted. Furthermore, given that the wrong suffered by the authors of the communication clearly requires comprehensive reparations 27 based on a survivor-centred approach, which would result from criminal proceedings, administrative and civil remedies alone would not have provided sufficient reparations and would not have resulted in an effective remedy. 28 In that regard, the Committee notes that, in 2016 and 2017, after having been informed of the violations to which they had been subjected, three of the authors (María Elena Carbajal, Florentina Loayza and Rosa Loarte) went to the Office of the Prosecutor and their cases were included in investigation No. 14-2016. 7.5 The Committee takes note of the State party’s argument that investigation No. 14-2016 is a complex case involving at least 2,500 alleged victims throughout the country and requiring numerous procedural steps to gather evidence and testimony and that, given that the investigation was launched in 2016, it cannot be considered to have been unduly delayed. The Committee takes note of the authors’ argument that, more than 24 years after their forced sterilization and more than 6 years after their inclusion in the Registry of Victims of Forced Sterilization, they have not received reparations; that no significant progress has been made in any of the investigations that have been ongoing since 2002, some of which have been shelved on several occasions; and that the only justification provided by the State party for the delay is its assertion that the investigation is complex and thus remains ongoing. The Committee also notes that the State party has not provided sufficient information on the specific steps taken or on the obstacles that have impeded its progress, and that it has not responded to the authors’ allegations that the criminal investigations have been unreasonably prolonged without producing significant progress or results. In view of the State party’s failure to justify the alleged delay in investigation No. 14-2016, which has been ongoing for eight years, the Committee considers that the delays cannot be attributed to the complexity of the case or to the number of victims and concludes that the remedy has been unreasonably prolonged and does not have to be exhausted for the purposes of the admissibility of the present communication. 29 The Committee therefore finds that article 4, paragraph 1, of the Optional Protocol to the Convention does not constitute an obstacle to the admissibility of the communication submitted on behalf of María Elena Carbajal, Florentina Loayza and Rosa Loarte. __________________ 25 26 27 28 29 24-19966 General recommendation No. 33 (2015) on women’s access to justice, para. 14, and general recommendation No. 39 (2022) on the rights of Indigenous women and girls, paras. 26 and 30. Ibid. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, report No. 71/03, Friendly settlement: María Mamérita Mestanza Chávez v. Peru, 10 October 2003, para. 14. G.H. v. Hungary (CEDAW/C/76/D/114/2017), para. 7.2. Alyne da Silva Pimentel v. Brazil (CEDAW/C/49/17/2008), para. 6.2. 13/19