Chaudhry T H, Tajammul N, Qureshi M A, Hanif S.
An audit of 50 cases of female victims of sexual assault reported at Surgeon Medico-legal office, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan.
J Allama Iqbal Med Coll Jan ;5(1):24-30.

Objectives: To study demographic pattern of sexual violence among females received at Surgeon Medico-legal Office, Lahore, Punjab. •To enumerate the risk factors for sexual violence among females. Study design: A retrospective case series report. Study Setting: Office of Surgeon Medico legal Punjab. Study Duration: The study was conducted from 01.01.2001 to 31.06.2001. Material and Method: The cases were taken from the office of the Surgeon Medico legal, a Performa was designed with specific variables and findings were noted. Data was entered in SPSS ver. 11.0 and was analyzed for demographic variable like age, rural urban settings, type of injuries, time interval between incidence and reporting. Main findings and Results: A total of cases 50 were selected who were fulfilling the inclusion criteria. 64.0 % of the victims were in younger age group of 11 - 20 years, 20.0 % of the females were in age group of 21 - 30 years, 8.0 % were in minor age group of 0-10 years and 8.0 % were in age group of 31-40 years. 66.0 % of the females belong to urban area and 34 % belong to rural area of Punjab. 52.0 % of the ladies who were victim of sexual assault were house wives and 48.0 % belonged to working class. 36.0 % of the females were married and 64.0 % of the females were unmarried. 24.0 % of the women reported for medicolegal examination with in 0 -2 days, 32.0 % within 3 -7 days, 20.0 % reported between 16 – 30 days, 6.0 % reported the crime after 30 days and among 8.0 % the time was non specific. 66.0 % of the victims changed their clothes after the incidence and before the medico-legal examination, 34.0 % did not. Injuries other than on local area were present in 18.0 % of the cases and 82.0 % of the cases were free from injuries. 34.0 % of the swabs from the victims were semen positive. 14.0 % positive for blood, 12.0 % positive for both semen and blood and 40.0 % negative for both semen and blood. Local injuries were absent among 96.0 % of the victims and only 4.0 % of the victims have local injuries on genitalia. 54.0 % of the victims have old healed tears, 28.0 % have fresh healed tears, 10.0 % of victim’s hymen was totally absent and 8.0 % of the cases hymen was intact. Conclusion: Sexual assault is more common in younger age group, and more frequent in urban setting and in unmarried women. A high percentage of women reporting after 24 hours of examination will cause loss of important medicolegal findings. Health care professionals should be aware that general body trauma is uncommon in our setting and the absence of injury does not exclude the possibility of intercourse, whether with or without consent. Whereas genital injury is also less frequent and is related to virginal status, and time of examination.

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