medical check scares young refugee

Jalenka was a 16 year old orphan when she was accepted as a refugee immigrant but her joy at a chance for a new life was soured by the cold-blooded medical check she was forced to endure.

"No man had ever seen much of my face - let alone a part of my body," says Jalenka, "so imagine how terrified I was when I was required to strip to my panties for a medical examination conducted by a young male doctor."

"I appreciate now that women in my new country accept being treated like lumps of flesh by male doctors - and do not flinch at being regularly subjected to all sorts of invasive procedures whether they are necessary or not," says Jalenka, "but it was all very new and very frightening for me - and it still is."

"In my old country a man is a man and no white coat makes him less of a man."

"There was no nurse - male or female - present at the medical examination," explains Jalenka. "It was just the young male doctor and myself."

"I could not believe that my new country was so insensitive to the feelings of a young girl."

"Would it have been too much trouble to have hired female doctors to examine female refugees?"

"I felt like a sheep - an animal without human feelings."

"The young doctor did not speak my language and I did not speak much English - but no words were necessary. He was just there to give me a physical examination, but he could not have missed how terrified I was."

"I was shaking like a leaf the whole time."

"I did not look at him - I turned my head away in shame."

"All I wore was a pair of panties - but he even wanted to see what was under the only piece of clothing I wore," says Jalenka.

"He lifted the elastic of my panties when I was lying down."

"Was it part of the medical examination to check whether I had public hair? Or was he looking to check that I was indeed a woman and not a man?"

"I started to weep at this point of the examination and I think the silly young doctor thought I was becoming sexually aroused."

"I was terrified that he was going to take my panties off in order to inspect my private parts - and maybe to stick something inside of me," sighs Jalenka, "but luckily for me he did not."

"I think I would have jumped up off the examination table and run away - rescinding my opportunity for a new life in a new country - had this happened to me."

"It was fit and proper that I needed to be medically examined for tuberculosis and other terrible diseases," says Jalenka, "but I do not believe that I needed to be humiliated in the way I was."

"X-rays and blood tests could have determined everything the government needed to know about my medical condition."

"I am left wondering whether I was accepted as an immigrant not because I was a refugee in need of a new home - but because I was a nubile young woman checked out and given the thumbs up by a male."