Jenny Wen was conducting study on rape, sexual assault victims.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: An Asian American college student is alleging that she was molested by a doctor during a hospital stay she had in New Delhi.
Jenny Wen was in India as part of a $28,000 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship program that took her to several different countries around the world, including Germany, South Africa, and Turkey.
Wen (22) is a recent graduate from Rice University in Texas, and is going to be starting medical school at Johns Hopkins University this fall, reports AlJazeera America.
Ironically, Wen was in New Delhi to do research on rape and sexual assault victims, as that happens to be her area of professional interest. Wen hopes to eventually get her Masters in Public Health degree to combat the problem of sexual assault and rape in various countries, but Wen unfortunately got a first-hand look at the problem while staying in the Indian capital.
After coming down with a severe fever and infection, Wen was forced to check into the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, where she spent five days in treatment. On her final night at the hospital, she alleges that the junior physician in charge of caring for her groped her repeatedly, under the pretense that he was conducting a routine medical check-up.
Her month in New Delhi quickly transformed from becoming a research expedition into a full-on criminal prosecution, as Wen demanded that local authorities press charges against the doctor. After complaining to hospital staff, who were apparently sympathetic but unwilling to do much, she took her case to the American Embassy in New Delhi and a local Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) called Jagori, which aids female victims of sexual abuse.
The embassy gave Wen the clearance to pursue a criminal case with the police, while Jagori helped her file the report as she did not know the local language. Wen also made her story by telling people about her abuse via Facebook, reports Al Jazeera, just under a week after the assault took place.
Finally, the hospital’s complaint committee decided to act, and in conjunction with the local police department, nabbed the doctor and charged him. He is now on trial, with the case still ongoing as Wen plans to testify, via remote video-conferencing, later this week.
Now that Wen’s story is public, she’s hoping that it will draw enough attention to force India to change its culture, one that has become a cesspool of rape, sexual assault, abuse, and male domination.
India has become a lightning rod for controversy after the December 2012 gang-rape and murder of a 23 year-old student on a bus in New Delhi. Now, in that very same city, Wen has experienced her own horror, adding to the multitude of shameful incidents that have plagued the country – including another high-profile incident in which a University of Chicago student wrote on CNN’s blog about being treated indecently while studying on the subcontinent.
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Despite having taken place in a large city and despite the fact that Wen had access to technology and at least a reasonable amount of money, she still faced numerous obstacles in getting her case to court. If someone needs to put forth that much effort to get a sexual assault case the attention it requires, what’s to be done with less-fortunate women in India’s rural regions?
That is the challenge India faces, and which the international community is calling on it to fix as soon as possible. Just last week, the United Nations came down hard on India for its growing spate of rapes and murders in Uttar Pradesh, some of which have ended in lynching. Even for those who don’t die, the emotional and mental anguish can be nearly impossible to overcome.
Wen told Al Jazeera that she still breaks down thinking about the incident with her doctor, but is able to cope with the support of her friends and family.