According to Oxford Dictionary, rape is defined as the crime, “typically committed by a man who forces himself onto women to have sexual intercourse against their will.” Despite all the initiatives taken by the government and non-government organisations such as the campaign against rape by Women's Movement in India and Saartjie Baartam Centre for Women and Children (SBCWC), the issue still lives among the people and has not instilled fear in rapists. Rape assault has become a common phenomenon and occurs worldwide. The tragic news about the Delhi gang rape which caused the death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in 2012 caused a global rage. She was brutally raped by 6 men and died painfully in Singapore from injuries sustained from the
…show more content…
If left untreated, the physical effects of rape can be devastating, and sometimes even deadly. Causes of death can be linked to suicide and murder, being infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and getting pregnant. Defence mechanisms such as denial, suppression and dissociation are common among rape victims. Illnesses that are long lasting such as chronic pelvic pain; premenstrual syndrome; gastrointestinal disorders; and a variety of chronic pain disorders, including headache, and back pain are commonly linked with sexual victimization (for reviews see Koss and Heslet, 1992; Dunn and Gilchrist, 1993; Hendricks-Mathews, 1993). People with serious drug-related problems and high-risk sexual behaviours were also characterized by elevated prevalence of sexual victimization (Paone et al., 1992). These findings suggest that victimized women may become inappropriate users of medical services by somaticizing their distress; however, the number of sexual assault victims who qualify for the psychiatric diagnosis of somatization disorder is small. In a comparison of sexual assault victims with matched non victimized women on nine psychiatric diagnoses and a sample size of more than 3,000, too few cases of somatization disorder were identified to analyse statistically (Burnam et al.,
If left untreated, the physical effects of rape can be devastating, and sometimes even deadly. Causes of death can be linked to suicide and murder, being infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and getting pregnant. Defence mechanisms such as denial, suppression and dissociation are common among rape victims. Illnesses that are long lasting such as chronic pelvic pain; premenstrual syndrome; gastrointestinal disorders; and a variety of chronic pain disorders, including headache, and back pain are commonly linked with sexual victimization (for reviews see Koss and Heslet, 1992; Dunn and Gilchrist, 1993; Hendricks-Mathews, 1993). People with serious drug-related problems and high-risk sexual behaviours were also characterized by elevated prevalence of sexual victimization (Paone et al., 1992). These findings suggest that victimized women may become inappropriate users of medical services by somaticizing their distress; however, the number of sexual assault victims who qualify for the psychiatric diagnosis of somatization disorder is small. In a comparison of sexual assault victims with matched non victimized women on nine psychiatric diagnoses and a sample size of more than 3,000, too few cases of somatization disorder were identified to analyse statistically (Burnam et al.,