More than one in ten men surveyed in six Asian countries said they had raped a woman who was not their partner and that figure rose to nearly one in four when wives and girlfriends were included among victims.
That was the lead to a recent story in The Economist about violence against women in Asia, including Indonesia. The Lancet recently completed a study into the subject and the statistics paint a distressing picture for women living in Asia.
The culture has to change around the world and especially in these countries when only 55% of the men stated they felt guilty and less than 25% were sent to prison for their crimes. I wish I had the answer on how to prevent these horrible crimes or at least punish the perpetrators. The sad reality is though, that as a health care provider for women, more often than not I will be dealing with the aftermath. So instead I will be focusing on how to help them heal.
