Sexual abuse: the painful reality of our contemporary society

Just as in any other country, sex crimes are not uncommon in Bhutan. But the recent stories of sexual abuse involving a health staff and a schoolteacher in Thimphu have shattered the entire nation. On the night of 5th April 2018, a health technician at JDW National Referral Hospital had allegedly raped a patient’s attendant after injecting her with an anesthetic drug in the pretext of testing her blood for transfusion. Then within the same week, another painful story of how nine young schoolgirls in a private school in Thimphu were sexually molested by their own vice-principal surfaced in the media and further shocked us even before we could recover from the trauma and shame caused by the earlier incident. It is very unfortunate that the very souls who are ethically bound to provide protection and care to their clients have themselves become a threat to the society. Although the crime committed by one health staff and one teacher should not be used as a yardstick to measure the professional conduct of thousands of teachers and health workers in the country, these stories certainly send out a clear message that our society is not always safe especially for women.