Without fear and under reproach: How health workers became predators

Last July, two male staff members at a mental health facility in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, were convicted of repeatedly raping two patients — one of whom was a minor incapable of resistance. Both men were sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay approximately $20,000 in damages to each victim, plus $1,180 in legal fees. The court cited a specific article of Kazakhstan’s Criminal Code addressing sexual violence against minors by individuals in positions of authority.

This case is part of a broader, deeply troubling pattern of sexual abuse by medical professionals worldwide. In May, a court in Trondheim, Norway, sentenced Dr. Arne Bye to 21 years in prison for multiple rapes of patients at a clinic in Frosta. Bye was stripped of his medical license and ordered to pay compensation.

In France, former surgeon Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, received a 20-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting 299 patients — many sedated and vulnerable — between 1989 and 2014.

As Judge Espen Haug in Trondheim noted, «sexual abuse by a health worker is absolutely unacceptable,» particularly in spaces where patients are supposed to feel safe.