Justice Devan Ramachandran observed that sexual offences leave the survivors with multiple forms of trauma, regardless of their age or gender but that the process of dealing with trauma varies from person to person.
“In the case of sexual assault victims, there is a lot of psychological trauma which happens immediately after the event, coupled with the physical trauma. After the victim goes through the trauma, she or he – I am making this gender neutral, it’s not necessary that it is always a lady, it could be man, woman, child, anyone – has to go to the police station…. We are re-traumatising the victim every time they have to go to the police station. There are people who contemplate taking their own lives due to this. Not everyone has a good support system. Every brain doesn’t work the same way. Some people take more time than others to get over their trauma,” he said.
The Court, therefore, called for suggestions from the Bar on how to better support survivors of sexual offences.
Source: Barandbench
