FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM 38 and women and to prevent discrimination against women, in particular such specific forms of discrimination as forced marriages, domestic violence and less access to education, health care and public life as well as discrimination at work. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, established under Article 17 of the Convention, considers periodic reports from States Parties regarding their compliance with the provisions of the Convention. The Committee makes general recommendations on specific Articles of the Convention, or on issues related to the Convention. In 1992, General Recommendation No. 19 was made on the issue of violence against women. The Recommendation defines gender-based violence against women to be violence as discrimination that is directed against women because she is a woman, or that affects women disproportionately. The Recommendation identifies poverty, unemployment and armed conflict as casual factors of trafficking and exploitation of prostitution of women. The Optional Protocol to CEDAW enables individuals or groups of individuals to submit written individual complaints to CEDAW. However the complaint can only concern countries that are party to the Protocol. v) Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 1984. Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment are particularly serious violations of human rights and, as such, are strictly condemned by international law. Based upon the recognition that such practices are outlawed, the Convention strengthens the existing prohibition by a number of supporting measures. The Convention provides for several forms of international supervision in relation to the observance by States Parties of their obligations under the Convention including the creation of an international supervisory body – the Committee against Torture – that can consider complaints from a State Party or from or on behalf of individuals. The prohibition against torture is absolute and, according to the Convention, no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, including state of emergency or war or an order from a public authority may be invoked as a justification of torture. “Torture” is defined as: “….any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him