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<h1>What to do if you've been raped?</h1>
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Here is that moment in that familiar place. You have been raped. And here comes that epiphany. The realization that you have been warned about this moment your whole life but still don’t know what you are supposed to do afterwards.
(Psst, if you are confused about what happened, or you’re not sure if you have been raped, or you’re feeling a host of emotions--all of which are completely natural--may we suggest our primer on __[[how to know if you’ve been raped->What is rape?]]__?)
You may choose not to seek justice, to never report the crime, to not discuss it. But if you wish to make a recovery, if you intend to seek justice, if you want to punish the man or men who have raped you, the first 24 hours are the most crucial. Coping with that first day’s procedures will shape the way rape affects your life.
Let’s start.
You’ve been raped. What would you like to do next?
__[[Report the incident]]__
__[[Go to the hospital]]__
__[[Counselling->List of counselling centres and resources]]__
The most difficult thing women face after sexual violence is the decision to report it. Nothing you ever hear in your life encourages you to report rape. If we need to seek justice for rape, we need to be collectively rewired to report rape, and report it swiftly.
__[[Procedure]]__
__[[What to expect]]__
__[[Experiences]]__
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In the interests of a full recovery and in the interest of investigations, it is best to go to a hospital as soon as possible. Whether or not you decide to report a rape to the police, you need medical treatment first.
Here are list of resources you can check out,
__[[Know more about other peoples hospital experiences]]__
__[[Medical Resources]]__
__[[Examination check list]]__
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Here are a few things other people found helpful..
[[Exercises]]
[[Apps]]
[[Reading material]]
[[TV Shows]]
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Here’s a handy checklist
- If you haven’t already, it’s a good idea to someone you trust to help you, or someone from a local NGO or women’s group for support.
- Try to report the case without changing clothes, bathing, changing sanitary pads, eating, brushing teeth or urinating.
- Ideally, get your complaint registered, get the police to seize your unwashed outer clothes and underclothes and allow a doctor to examine you for the presence of injuries and spermatozoa.
- Most rape survivors have the rush to wash themselves, urinate and change clothes, unknowingly destroying vital evidence. It’s best to preserve it.
- Whether or not you decide to report, you need medical treatment first.
It’s best to go prepared with the fact that the police display deep resistance to filing FIRs in all kinds of cases, not just rape. Here’s __[[what to expect->What to expect]]__.
Most rape survivors feel that not reporting the incident is the better option, because they know or has heard of how the law, the police and the society treat women who report rape. Being hesitant is natural.
Having said that, here’s a list of comments, statements, and even reprimands that you can expect when you report.
- If the police stall or refuse to lodge a FIR, call the police control room, tell them your location and ask for the mobile number of the ACP of the zone.
- For lodging the FIR, you will be directed to the police station’s official writer, to whom you must describe your rape in as much detail as you can--the date, the time and the place.
- You have to give a full description of the location, including the address if you can. If it happened in a moving vehicle, describe the vehicle and its route as much as you can.
- Lawyers say that the police tend to trim the survivor’s statement and compel the survivor to omit vital details.
Very often, police and defence lawyers like to ask why the woman did not shout for help.
- You must prepare yourself for the question of why you didn’t resist enough.
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For further legal advice check out
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Despite how hard it will be, women all over India do report rape and brace themselves for the long, gruelling haul.
Here is the routine of the identification parade that Megha is told to follow. There are separate line-ups of seven men, and the survivor has to pick the accused by touching him on the arm. She then has to go to a corner of the room, and announce loudly what the suspect did to her. And this is what Megha does on September 4, in a room full of men that include her attackers, without any women officers present to aid her. She touches the men on the arm to identify them, and then says, Isne mera balatkaar kiya (He sexually assaulted me). She repeats this four times over.
- __[[That Hashtag Was My Colleague->http://theladiesfinger.com/that-hashtag-was-my-colleague/]]__
Bilkis Bano made history by winning the first conviction in a riot-related rape in post-independence India. In 2002, while fleeing the post-Godhra violence, Bano’s family was slaughtered by men from her village. Bano was 19 and five months pregnant. Her toddler was murdered in front of her. She was raped by three different men and left for dead. She woke up naked amidst her family’s corpses. She hid in the hills in the home of an Adivasi family and then, with gargantuan courage, the 19-year-old went to a police station. According to a 2008 Tehelka magazine report, the men of the Limkhed police station “threatened her, saying if she insisted on filing charges of rape the hospital authorities would administer her a ‘poisonous injection’ and kill her.” Bano refused to back down. She did not back down for six whole years – until the Mumbai Sessions Court convicted 13 of the 20 accused on charges of criminal conspiracy, rape and murder.
- __[[Bilkis Bano rape case, courtesy What To Do If You Have Been Raped?->http://theladiesfinger.com/what-to-do-if-you-have-been-rape/]]__
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Lawyers and activists describe incident after incident where rape survivors, even child survivors, were refused treatment by doctors.
A recent CEHAT report analysing its interventions in three Mumbai hospitals between 2008 and 2012 recounts the story of a 6-year-old who was sexually assaulted. At one hospital, she was examined and forensic samples were collected. She had injuries in her genitals. Her mother was informed that the child would be given no treatment. Nor was she referred elsewhere. Nor was her documentation shared. The mother took her child to a private clinic, where the doctors refused treatment because it was a case of sexual assault. She then went to a government hospital, which then referred her to another hospital, where they arrived at midnight and, finally, received treatment. Rege says, “The problem often is that doctors today treat the body of the rape survivor merely as a place for forensic evidence. They are too busy collaborating with the courts, the police and the Home Ministry to offer therapeutic care to the survivor.”
- __[[What To Do If You Have Been Raped?, The Ladies Finger->http://theladiesfinger.com/what-to-do-if-you-have-been-rape/]]__
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Rape survivors are also advised to return to a hospital for more extensive medical treatment as soon as they can. Some health professionals suggest that survivors should be admitted for 24-48 hours for observation.
Here’s an __[[amazing crowdsourced list->https://docs.google.com/document/d/17Z8mrQo80A_kYwGN-j9MjH1ppSTWjVxDgYK0njpb6yE/pub]]__ of gynaecologists that Twitter users @AmbaAzaad and others created
Here’s a list of handy of dos and don’ts to help you out
- Know your right: Under Section 357-C of the Code of Criminal Procedure, all hospitals in India are legally required to immediately provide first aid or medical treatment free of cost to rape survivors.
- You also need to be examined for concussions and internal injuries.
If your doctor doesn’t offer the option to be tested for pregnancy, STIs and HIV-AIDS, make sure to ask for it.
- If you seek treatment, the doctor is required to inform the police of the incident. But the doctor’s intimation is not a First Information Report.
Learn about the dreaded __[[Two Finger Test->The two finger test]]__.
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A recurring motif in the mythology around rape investigations in India is the two-finger test. Perhaps you’ve heard of it and the thought of it. Does it really exist? Yes, it does. The two-finger test is the jewel in the crown of misogyny.
What is the two-finger test?
When a woman is raped and has summoned the courage to go to a hospital and then wait hours for a gynaecological examination, the doctor will frequently try to establish her veracity, her victimhood and her character by inserting two (hopefully) gloved fingers into her vagina. Do her vaginal muscles widen under pressure from these fingers? Then she is ‘habituated to sexual intercourse’.
At this moment you are probably asking: So what? You will have to follow the logic carefully. If your vaginal muscles are lax, then you are used to sex. If you are used to sex, then you a) shouldn’t be bothered by rape, b) are probably lying that you were raped, c) ought to have been raped, or d) all of the above.
Women’s groups have fought tooth and nail to get rid of the humiliating and ridiculous two-finger test. The laxity of vaginal muscles or the absence of a hymen can prove nothing about your sexual history. However, the Indian medical community continues to labour under such medieval ideas about female anatomy.
If a doctor or nurse does deploy the two-finger test on you, do not let his or her ignorance intimidate you.
In case you need further medical advice check out
__[[Medical Resources]]__
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Just as you need to go to the hospital first, a survivor (or those close to her) should seek a trauma counsellor right away.
Though rape counselling is not exactly thick on the ground in India, there are many more such services than before. Groups such as __[[Majlis->http://www.majlislaw.com/]]__ and __[[Rahat->http://theladiesfinger.com/whats-the-ratio-of-known-vs-stranger-rapists-take-a-wild-guess-that-and-other-highlights-from-the-2015-rahat-report-on-sexual-violence/]]__ in Mumbai, __[[Swanchetan->http://www.swanchetan.org/]]__ in Delhi, Tulir in Chennai and the one at at Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences in Bangalore provide both immediate crisis intervention and long-term counselling.
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[[Home->Opening page]]
[[Legal Procedure->Report the incident]]
[[Medical Help->Go to the hospital]]
[[List of counselling centres and resources]]
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//Was I raped?// As comedian Ever Mainard says, “The problem is that every woman has that one moment when you think, here’s my rape! The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2013’s long-awaited expansion of the definition of rape includes every form of non-consensual penetrative sexual acts by men on women beyond just penile vaginal penetration.
If difficult legalese isn’t for you, this is how you know if you’ve been raped. If you were asleep, threatened, unconscious, if sex was forced upon you, if you were under the age of consent or were in no situation to provide consent, if you changed your mind and were ignored, if for any reason you did not or could not consent. Simply, if you were penetrated with a body part or an object without consent, or made to penetrate a person without consent, it is rape.