According to the latest statistics available, a woman is raped every 54 minutes somewhere in Nepal. Most of these rape cases never come to light because the women and their families do not allow them to. No police case is filed, no trial takes place and no one is brought to justice. Horrified? But then even in the west, only 10 per cent of the rape cases are reported, the prosecution rate for reported rape is just 7-10 per cent, and the conviction rate is about 10 per cent.

Shock, shame and fear of both social stigma and of being raped again as a reprisal dissuade the majority of rape victims from reporting the crime. And then, even if a girl and her family are bold enough to file a complaint and the case actually comes up for trail, Nepalese rape laws are so inadequate that prosecution is difficult.

In order for a victim to be convicted, she must prove in an open court that the rapist sexually penetrated her. Not only is this very difficult to prove, but is also embarrassing for the victim. And a defense lawyer determined to wind up the case can be so brutally insensitive that he can literally make the rape victim feel like running out of the courtroom or commit suicide.

Media
Of course, not all rapes remain secret, and a few horror stories do come out. Whenever any such incident occurs, the media plays it up. News channels repeatedly run stories on it and unearth more and more details about the victim and the rapist(s). Opposition politicians then take up the matter and use it as a stick to beat the incumbent government with for not maintaining law and order. The police are hauled up, and NGOs dealing with women's issues come forward with offer to help the woman and fight her case.

Rape victims are invariably described as " traumatized"but few studies have been conducted in Nepal on the effect of rape on the psyche of the victims. Counseling of rape victims is not available in most hospitals, and even when it is available, it is limited to just a session or two, and is fairly superficial. People who should know much better are often amazingly ignorant about rape and its effect, since most of the rapes are usually committed by teenagers.

Another chauvinistic view among the less educated people is that rape is not all that big an issue since a girl is going to have sex anyway. Rape only means that she has it earlier than she otherwise would have or that she isn't too happy about the conditions in which it occurred. So it is not a big deal!

Studies have revealed that the typical rape victim is between 15 and 35 years of age. Divorced and women separated from their husband are raped more frequently than married women because they are likely to go out alone more. Divorced and women separated from their husbands are often raped by their (ex-) husbands as "punishment,"whereas single women face the danger of date rape.

Majority of the rapists are between 20-35 years of age, about 50 per cent are married or have a regular sexual partner. Most are also likely to have gotten into trouble with the law while young. Many are themselves troubled men who have been sexually abused as children.

One cannot generalise on how women react to being raped. Reactions depend on many things - personality, the circumstances of the rape, the woman's background and family. Women recover faster from rape when they get support from their families, the police and the community. But unfortunately, this support is not always forthcoming.

Parents are usually not that insensitive or narrow-minded, but they often do not know how to help the victims. They are also scared of the social stigma attached to rape. The police are often indifferent and insensitive. Rape cases are not taken as seriously as murder, robbery or kidnapping, and they hold out little hope of finding the rapist when the victim comes to register an FIR.

Sympathy
Community support to the victim is also lacking. People take a morbid interest in the details of the crime, but true sympathy is generally not shown. People gossip about the girl - they wonder if she provoked the boy in some way - whether she jilted him and was a revenge crime or if she is pregnant. And whenever the subject of her marriage comes up, so does the matter of her rape.

Fortunately, these attitudes are changing with women's organisations becoming more vocal, with more research being conducted and with the effort being made to educate the public on the issue. The police are also on high alert in this regard. Let's hope no rapist ever walks free after committing the crime.