“It’s been more than a year since my trauma. I still get nightmares and I find myself unable to trust any man. I am scared of getting married or having kids. My biggest fear is that the same thing might happen to someone I love, that someone I love might get raped.”

The first thing that would always come to my mind when someone spoke of acid attacks was a woman victim, until I met a man whose face and body was scarred by an attack masterminded by a woman.

It was a cold night in February 1991 when the Indian army allegedly raped around 50 women of the Kunan-Poshpora villages in Indian-administered Kashmir. In the pretext of a search operation, the army forced out all the men from their homes. The women were then raped all through the night.

Why do some communities seem to tolerate or at least, serve as breeding grounds for sexual assault? What can victims do after the incident has happened?  How can a victim learn to deal with flashbacks and return to normal life? Women Talk Online blogger Beenish Javed spoke to Carolyn Worth, manager at the  South Eastern Centre against Sexual Assault Melbourne Area (SECASA), Australia. Her institute has helped rape victims from different parts of the world.

How does a victim cope with rape? What tools do psychologists employ to help a rape victim lead a normal life after the trauma she has suffered? Women Talk Online Blogger Debarati Mukherjee speaks to New Delhi-based psychotherapist, Dr. Saima Nafis Khan.

Every day, in every walk of my life in Germany, I am confronted with these questions. My colleagues ask me these questions, my cab drivers asks me these questions, my husband asks me these questions, strangers who I meet for the first time ask me these questions as soon as they find out that I am Indian.