According to the Thomson Reutters Foundation 2018 survey, India is the most dangerous country for sexual violence (Bellinger, 2019). In fact, India’s National Crime Records Bureau found that 338,954 violent crimes against women occurred in 2016, and 38,947 of those included rape (Bellinger, 2019). Therefore, in 2018, India’s Prime Minister made an executive order to give the death penalty to any person convicted of sexually assaulting a child under the age of 12 (Bellinger, 2019). However, while these laws had good intent, they were not enough to stop women from continuing to be tortured and raped.

In addition, spousal abuse is beginning to be recognized as a widespread health problem in developing countries like India. In a study done in a region of India, it was found that 18-45% of husbands were reported to physically beat their wives (Gerstein, 2000).  These statistics do not even take into account the mental or emotional abuse that these women suffer from at home. I have never witnessed physical abuse in my family members from India, but I see how some of my uncles suppress the voices of my aunts and I see that they are sometimes afraid to speak up for themselves. My grandmother is one of twelve children and only one of her sisters married a man she loved. Therefore, I can only imagine how an arranged marriage may lead to these outcomes.

Research shows that crime against women may be due to the lack of representation of women in political office. For example, of India’s 48% female population, only 12% hold a seat in the national legislature (Bellinger, 2019). Moreover, by having more women in positions of leadership, they can understand and more effectively serve the well-being of themselves and other people of the same gender. By having a diverse political party, with women or an LGBTQ representative, different priorities may be discussed to represent different types of people in each country. I think that having more women in political office in India can really make an impact on violence rates.

Additionally, reframing violence against women and trauma as a health issue challenges our understanding of health, illness, and medicine because medicine is supposed to help people. However, in these emotional cases of trauma, there is only so much medicine can do to help a person heal; medication is not the most effective way to deal with trauma. Talking to medical professionals about an experience they do not understand firsthand is also most likely not effective to most people. Moreover, this trauma can be expanded by the invasive medical procedures that professionals perform on women. Women who have been violated often find it difficult to give up their control to a medical professional in their birthing process. This week’s material also mentions how difficult it may be for these victims of assault to trust health care providers, especially when some of the medical procedures in pregnancy can be very invasive and sensitive for those who have gone through such a horrible experience.

Reframing intergenerational trauma challenges biomechanical models of health because the mechanical or biomechanical models of health only focuses on the biological reasons for why abuse may carry on to other generations. However, psychologically, a women who has been abused may be more likely to marry someone who is abusive. For example, according to Raj, Livramento, Santana, Gupta, and Silverman (2006), there is a significant relationship between victims of abuse from relatives and victims of spousal abuse in India. In other words, the authors are saying that a women who is used to being abused from her family members may marry someone who is equally as abusive. Moreover, from this week’s material we learned that sometimes a victim of abuse tend to dissociate themselves from the experience and in turn, end up dissociating themselves from other aspects of their lives. This is also a psychological problem that medical professionals in a hospital setting have a hard time explaining because it is outside their area of expertise. It is difficult for a medical professional to treat trauma patients because they do not have the resources to treat them. In the future, I hope that trauma can be treated better in hospital settings and that treating trauma patients can be taught better to medical professionals.

Works cited

Bellinger, N. (2019). India has a sexual assault problem that only women can fix. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/india-has-a-sexual-assault-problem-that-only-women-can-fix-101366

Gerstein, L. (2000). In India, poverty and lack of education are associated with men’s physical and sexual abuse of their wives. International Perspectives On Sexual And Reproductive Health, 26(1), 44.

Raj, A., Livramento, K. N., Santana, M. C., Gupta, J., & Silverman, J. G. (2006). Victims of Intimate Partner Violence More Likely to Report Abuse From In-Laws. Violence Against Women, 12(10), 936–949. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801206292935