AN END TO “TWO FINGER” TEST !

AN END TO “TWO FINGER” TEST !

For a rape survivor, trauma comes in repeat doses. First, there is the gruesome act and then follows the difficult task of reporting the assault. For years, an impediment to coming forward about a sexual offence has been the finger test a survivor is subjected to - a gross violation of privacy, a horror upon horrors.

31st October 2022, the supreme court of India moved to make amends, declaring that any that any person conducting the invasive “two finger” or “three finger” vaginal test on rape or sexual assault survivors will be found guilty of misconduct.

Calling it regressive, the court said, “this so called test has no scientist base and neither proves nor disproves allegations of rape. It instead revictimizes and retraumatizes women who may have been sexually assaulted and is an affront to their dignity”.

The apex court said weather a women is “habituated to sexual intercourse” or not is irrelevant for the purposes of determining weather there has been a rape under section-375 of the Indian penal code. This test, it said, is based on the incorrect assumption that a sexually active women cannot be raped; and “it is patriarchal and sexist to suggest that a women cannot believed when she states that she was raped”.

The court, upset that the practice still continues, has directed the union and state government to do everything to spread the message, including amending the medical curriculum so that students are aware that the finger test procedure is not to be followed while examining a rape survivor.

It is now up to the governments, health centers and police station to act with sensitivity and without discrimination and ensure women have access to justice and dignity while reporting rape.