‘Stigma, rebuke and even divorce’. The raped woman dilemma

It is the norm for people to walk into the consultation room at the Sexology Clinic and immediately pour out their hearts.

They talk about the difficulties their sexual problems have caused them, the herbalists they have seen, the food supplements they have used and sometimes the other medical professionals who have attended to their problems.

If not for anything else, Sexual Medicine clinics offer a safe space where people can discuss such personal issues without the fear of being judged.

The story of Joy is however one that did not obey this norm. She walked into the consultation room, sat down and remained quiet. Holding her chin with the left hand, her eyes glued to the floor. She uttered no word for close to five minutes. She did not answer to my greetings nor did she answer my questions about why she was visiting the clinic.

“Which language do you speak, I could get someone to translate our conversation,” I said, not sure of what else I could do to make her speak. She lifted her head, stared at space and wept.

“I am sorry, I hope you understand,” she finally talked, blowing her nose and wiping her tears after close to five minutes of crying. I nodded with understanding, encouraging her to talk more.

She was 34-year-old teacher in a secondary school. She was married to Richard, a 35-year-old businessman. They had two children.

“I already bought poison and I was going to take it this morning,” she said, “it was a difficult decision but the best under the circumstances.”  

I nodded, encouraging her to continue. Incidentally she had been raped the previous night. She was leaving school at about 7 pm when a male colleague, the Deputy Principal, called her back to his office, purportedly to discuss an urgent issue.

He offered her a cup of coffee which she took. She could not remember what followed thereafter. She woke up in the morning in a hotel room, the Deputy Principal on her side making jokes that her systems were too weak to withstand a mere beverage. She realised she was naked. She was drowsy and felt wetness in her private parts.

“You were raped!” I exclaimed unable to hide my disdain for what I was hearing to which Joy broke down again into an uncontrollable sob.

Her husband was away on a business trip and was scheduled to arrive back home the next day. She had many missed calls from him from the previous night. She also had missed calls from her neighbour and her children.

“So there are two reasons why suicide is my best option,” she said, “my husband will never believe that I was drugged and raped by someone I know so well; secondly I cannot forgive that beast yet I cannot expose myself to the shame of a court process.”

I for once realised the difficulty women go through when rape happens. The default position is that they will be blamed for it. They will be stigmatised, rebuked and even divorced. The shame can be overwhelming.

The rapist, on the other hand is innocent until proven guilty, so says the mighty law of the land. The honours to initiate a judicial process rests with the woman who at the same time bears the psychological and physical trauma of the rape.

The court process is itself adversarial and sometimes demeaning to the woman. The process degenerates into arguments most of which aim to portray the woman as a devil incarnate, a harlot who accepted sex and for some reason later feared social repercussions and resorted to punishing an innocent decent man as a scapegoat.

In some communities the matter is not even taken to court; the woman is forced to marry the rapist. If pregnancy happens they force the woman to deliver and take care of the baby forever. At the same time, the woman may get infected with diseases such as Hepatitis B and HIV.

These only add to the burden of the woman. There are communities where cows, goats or camels will be shared between families as ransom without much thought of the suffering of the survivor.

“I called my friend before I came here and told her what had happened,” Joy interrupted my narrative, “she told me to calm down and move on with my life, that she also had been raped and that many women are raped each day and just decide to forget and move on with life.”

And yes, this is the fate that many women resign to: they hurt, they feel suicidal, and their self-esteem wanes but they decide to move on. Unfortunately, life does not remain kind to them going forward. Many cases of sexual dysfunction, marital problems and psychiatric diseases can be traced back to the rape.

I spent a good part of the day resolving Joy’s predicament. I did not allow her out of the clinic lest she took her life away. With her permission, I involved the family in the matter, put her on medical treatment of rape and connected her to legal support services.

The offender was arrested the same day. We both agreed that the best way to heal from rape is not to accept to be a victim and take to suicide or accept long term consequences but to stand up against it until justice is served, for in that way your self-esteem, self-worth and the strength to continue living is re-harnessed.