Rape victims in Shenzhen will get free medical and psychological treatment when the city initiates a care project focusing on rape victims starting from next month.

Named "Spring Breeze," the project will last a year and is aimed to urge society to care for and respect rape victims, help the public understand and pay attention to problems triggered from sexual assaults.

Sponsored by the city's volunteers' association, the women and children psychology consulting center, the psychology crisis intervention center and the psychology service center of the city's public security bureau, the project would offer the most effective therapies in the world, including the functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), which had been proved to be effective for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients, said Sui Shuangge, a doctor with the volunteers' association.

"Among rape victims, 50 to 90 percent will likely come down with PTSD, which makes one become sensitive to the outside world and continue to shy away from some people, something and certain scenes," said Sui. "Without timely and effective psychological intervention, victims will likely have chronic psychological problems."

The public security bureau has a list of 400 to 500 rape victims each year in recent years. However, the actual number is estimated six to 10 times more as many victims chose to keep silent rather than calling police.

(Shenzhen Daily August 17, 2005)