An analysis of victims of sexual assault attending Siriraj Hospital.

ABSTRACT

Two-hundred eighteen out-patients records of victims of sexual assault who were treated at the traumatic unit of Siriraj Hospital during 1989 were studied. Personal history data, the findings of physical examinations as well as laboratory results were kept in a computerised system. An analysis of the data revealed the following 1. The number of victims during the one-year period were included among 555 cases seen at the Police General Hospital, which indicated that the incidence of sexual crime in Bangkok Metropolis is rather high when compared with the number of sexual offences tried in court. This would mean that some offenders are not apprehended or that some victims refuse to report rape to the police, or among those who do, subsequently withdraw the allegations. All victims in this series are female and about one third of them fall into the age group below 15 years, which means that they should have had absolute protection under law against sexual abuse. The vast majority of victims were 16-20 years of age. 2. About 40 percent of the victims were students and about 75 percent of the victims over 15 years of age were single. Most of the crimes took place at home. Particulary among the victims under 15 years of age, 84 percent of the crimes took place at home. There was a correlation in the offender-victim relationship, which showed that 84 percent of the offenders in this group were acquaintances of the victims. 3. Medical evidence such as marks of violence on the victims’ body and genital trauma each were found in about 11 percent of the cases. Laboratory results the finding of spermatozoa in the vagina and/or acid phosphatase test using vaginal swabs were positive in about 53 percent of the cases. However, such evidence was related to the time that had elapsed since the criminal act. If the victim was examined 72 hours or more after the event, no medical evidences at all could be found. 4. Concerning offender-victim relationship, our series showed that most of the offenders were acquaintances; strangers accounted for only about 14 percent of the raoists.