Doctors, lawyers must be sensitive to rape victims

The two finger test that is used in India is inhuman and violates a woman’s privacy

Arape survivor in India suffers trauma on multiple counts. The first is the violence she suffers, the second is a lax criminal justice system, and the third is that instead of providing a safe environment for forensic examination and treatment, the medical system treats her in an inhuman way. Intrusive tests are banned, yet doctors use them in India.

Guidelines against the degrading practice of what is called a two finger test, a method used to assess whether the victim is a virgin or not have been in place for over three years. Even before that, the Supreme Court had held that this test cannot be used against a rape victim to suggest that she is of loose morals and, therefore, not deserving of being treated as a victim. Many doctors also give undue importance to injuries, the lack of which is seen as consent. The law clearly asks health professionals to provide psychological and social care to the victim even while gathering evidence. It is often based the sketchy evidence provided by the two finger test that the criminal justice system proceeds. If this test finds that the woman has not suffered any visible injury or that she is not a virgin, her reputation is attacked.

The aim of any legal system should be that victims aren’t frightened of coming forward to report them. But here, even though many more women are willing to seek justice, they are not willing to suffer more humiliation. This is also a violation of the privacy of the victim, as activists and experts have said in a letter to the health ministry. Gender sensitisation is a term bandied about quite casually when it comes to women’s rights. A good way of ensuring that this means something is to ensure that women are not subject to horrible practices that violate their human rights.