Rape in India and paramedic training

Rape is a trauma like none other.

The prevalence of rape in India and the failure of the Indian establishment to contain it, are testimony to what Indian women are forced to endure in an aspirational and tech-savvy country that seeks to hold a respectable seat at the international table.

Recent reports in the national Indian press about a paramedic being accused of rape will surprise very few people. The emergency services including the police are often considered part of the problem, either as active perpetrators or ineffective spectators. The issue of sexual violence against women in India gained unprecedented public awareness during the ‘Nirbhaya’ episode, when people held mass vigils to demand ‘justice’, not the least because the rapists had been identified by the police. The victim ultimately died from her wounds and the murder trial took an extraordinary and unacceptable amount of time, despite being ‘fast-tracked’. Elections were fought and potentially won on the slogans of safety and protection of women. However, since then, incidents of rape in India have not shown a substantial decline. The responsibility for this is predictably tossed around on the political stage. The reported rape by a paramedic in India brings the matter close to home for the international family of acute care providers in all domains.