Re-Victimization of Women during Rape Trials

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Rape has been a common way of victimizing woman or men in the world physically, mentally as well as socially with sexual abuse. It is not a new phenomenon, however. There has been a generation being raped in the history in the various parts of the world. Considering past as past and moving on in the present, there are rapes every now and then around the world. Of course some are reported and hundreds of them or even thousands of them go unreported. Those unreported are never heard and a sheer silence always covers the victim and the victimizer remains free. But what about those reported rapes? There is a lengthy process when you consider reporting rape. A woman especially when she reports of rape has to undergo various kinds of “trials” that makes her takes her back to the day or the moment when she was harassed and she re-lives the crime that she underwent physically and mentally. When the reporting is done and when trial happens in courtroom, what kind of discourse is held? Does it re-victimizes women while she re-lives and narrates what happens to her to an audience? Considering the idea of re-victimization of women in the courtroom, this paper deals with how the discourse of Rape trials further victimizes a woman. This paper will do a discourse analysis by taking few case studies and interviews with the victims, lawyers and the stakeholders and their discourse with the rape victims in the Nepalese context and the sufferings that a victim undergoes.