News > The problems with our language for sexual health and abuse

The problems with our language for sexual health and abuse

Have you, who do not read or write in the vernaculars, ever wondered about the semantic problem faced when writing about sexual abuse in Hindi? Working on a book on the reproductive health of India’s rural women a decade ago, I was taken aback by our vernaculars’ near uniform lack of a clear terminology for feminine reproductive organs, feminine hygiene, or clinically graphic discussions on women’s reproductive rights and wrongs.