We all talk about the trauma that a girl undergoes during rape. But nobody talks about how this episode affects her for the rest of her life – how she freezes every time she has to go for an examination, at the gynaecologist’s clinic; how fear makes her rigid every time she attempts to have sex, even though the man is somebody she likes and wants to be with.
There are no counselling services or clinics that offer help on dealing with issues like these; but no therapy sessions that deal with how to enjoy sex again, after the trauma of rape.
It finally took a victim to understand the discomfort and the cold fear that other victims go through, when it comes to doing anything physical, yet ordinary even years after their rape. UK-based Pavan Amara set up the world’s first specialist clinic to help women deal with their bodies after sexual assault.
Student nurse Pavan Amara, now 27, was raped as a teenager. It turned her life upside down and took her a very long time to come to terms with. “I couldn’t go to the doctor anymore because I didn’t want to be touched,” she told The Telegraph. “I tried to go for a cervical smear and it reminded me so much of the forensic testing I’d had – ‘lie down, do this, do that’ – that I couldn’t go through with it.”
She started to look for support, typing ‘rape, body image, can’t go to doctor’ on Google search, but found few useful results. So Amara contacted other women support groups and quickly realised that she wasn’t the only one.
She met other women whose sexual assault had led to eating disorders, self harming – who spoke about how the inability to have sex after the episode had ruined their marriages.
So, in August 2014, she set up My Body Back, a project that supports women who have experienced sexual violence, focusing particularly on issues of body image and sexuality, helping them to reclaim their bodies as their own.
A part of her solution was Café V – a monthly meeting in a London, women-only sex shop. It offers practical advice on how to enjoy sex again after rape. It offers insights and tips in a fun manner, which helps the victims deal with it better rather than support group meetings which end up depressing them.
She also opened a My Body Back clinic, exclusively for sexual assault victims to get cervical screening and STI treated. The clinic will encourage women who are put off seeking a test, after experiencing sexual violence because they don’t want to be touched or are worried about being pressured into reporting to the police.
The doctors here ask detailed questions on areas that the victim is uncomfortable with being touched, phrases and words that they are uncomfortable with.
For example, one patient wanted to make sure nobody told her to relax while she had her smear test – because it was the same word her rapist had used throughout the attack.
Those who want to remain anonymous will be provided with a self-testing kit, a private space and a video guide on how to carry out the test correctly. The results can be texted to a mobile phone. Measures like these help give the victim a sense of control over the situation, unlike examination at regular clinics.
Now Amara plans to expand and set up clinics in other cities of the UK too. We also hope that somebody thinks about this for India too.
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