Sexual Assault of the Female Gender Admitted to the "One Stop Centre" Unit in Commune I of the District of Bamako: Epidemiological, Clinical and Legal Management Aspects

Abstract

Sexual violence is an all-encompassing expression that designates "any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, comment or advance of a sexual nature directed against a person's sexuality using coercion. The general objective was to study sexual assaults based on the female gender in the "One Stop Center" unit of the reference health center in commune I of the district of Bamako, Republic of Mali. Methodology: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study of sexual assaults on women admitted to the commune I One Stop Center. All survivors of sexual assault admitted to the One Stop Center during the study period were included; confidentiality and anonymity were respected. Results: We recorded 224 cases of victims of gender-based violence out of 10,924 gynaecological consultations received at the department, a frequency of 2.05%. Of the 224 victims of gender-based violence admitted to the One Stop Centre, 109 (48.66%) were victims of sexual assault. The average age of the patients was 14.12 ± 5.06 years, with extremes of 2 and 36 years. The victims were all female. The majority of survivors (94%) were single. More than half of the victims (55%) were pupils. More than half of the assaults (57.8%) took place between 7pm and midnight. 60.6% of the assaults took place at the survivors' homes. In 8% of cases, weapons were threatened. We found that hymenal lesions were predominant in 76.2% of cases. HIV serology was positive in 1% of victims. Antibiotic prophylaxis was the predominant medical treatment in 69.7% of cases. Suture of the vulvo-perineal tear was the surgical treatment in 2.8% of cases. Out-of-court settlements were the solution in the majority of cases (20.18% of cases), followed by withdrawal of the complaint to the court (6.4% of victims). Conclusion: This study has shown that sexual violence against women is increasing in scale and severity despite the regulatory and legislative framework.