After a sharp rapping by women rights and health activists on his department’s proposed reintroduction of the two-finger test for rape survivors, a visibly embarrassed Health Minister Satyendra Jain on Monday issued a fresh advisory stating that the ‘two-finger test’ — to ascertain sexual assault is banned.
The test on sexual assault and rape victims is banned as per the Union Health Ministry’s guidelines. The Supreme Court has called it “cruel, inhuman, degrading”.
Delhi’s former Health Minister Kiran Walia expressing her “horror and shock” at the present government’s move, said, “The test violates and humiliates the survivor in the most humiliating manner.”
“The medical examination cannot be a mental, physical and emotional torture of the rape survivor. I am shocked that the present government despite such clear SC guidelines could come out with such a notification instructing hospitals to carry the two-finger test,” she said.
A vaginal examination is needed in case of sexual attack to assess internal injuries, use of force if any, noting any discharge and gathering of sample, among others.
Kavita Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women’s Association, said that through this ‘episode’, the Aam Aadmi Party government had displayed a “complete lack of understanding of the basis of the two-finger test”, which is used to determine the sexual history of the woman.
“Nobody has a problem with the vaginal examination of a rape survivor for gathering evidence, medical examination, and care, but you cannot use it to test elasticity and term a woman as habituated to sex,” she said.
Ms. Krishnan said that the Delhi Government needs to relook at the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2014 to understand “care and evidence gathering procedures”.
“State governments needed to ensure that all doctors were following the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare guidelines on medico-legal care in a time-bound manner,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry — in guidelines circulated in March 2014 by the Indian Council for Medical Research — had said that the test “should not be performed in cases of sexual assault”.
“Only those findings shall be documented that are relevant to the assault. It must be noted that absence of injury to the hymen does not rule out vaginal penetration,” the guidelines said.
