In several parts of Africa, there's a growing call from "traditionalists" to bring back virginity testing. This practice usually involves checking if a woman's hymen is intact.
Virginity testing has appeared in various forms across the world in places like China, Haiti, Italy, Jamaica, Turkey, and Zimbabwe. It's mainly done on girls, but sometimes boys are also "tested." Girls can be tested from ages seven to 26.
Sometimes, virginity testing is a public event done as part of a ritual, in church, or at school. In other communities, it's done at home by the girl's mother, an aunt, a neighbor, or a potential husband. The social pressure is intense, leading girls to take dangerous steps to fool testers, risking injury to their vaginas. Some girls have reported pushing toothpaste or a piece of white lace dipped into tomato sauce into their vaginas to mimic a hymen.
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The testing has been criticized as ineffective, unhygienic, and a violation of human rights. Doctors say that checking for an intact hymen doesn't reliably show if someone has had sex. Women can break their hymens through activities unrelated to sex, like riding a bicycle, falling, or using a tampon. Also, some girls' hymens are broken when they are sexually assaulted.
The threat of these tests can lead young women and girls to engage in "virginity-saving" sexual practices that raise their risk of getting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV.
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Today, in most places where virginity testing is being revived or introduced, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is having a severe impact. Proponents claim that this is "the most effective way" to prevent teen pregnancy and is "an answer to the scourge of AIDS." They call virginity testing a "traditional," "African," or "culturally-appropriate" way to prevent HIV. Proponents also claim that this practice helps communities both prevent and discover child abuse and rape.
In contrast, there are a wide range of sexual activities, many of which put people at risk for HIV-infection, that do not involve vaginal penetration. Furthermore, the physical invasiveness of checking a young girl’s hymen may be traumatic for them.
Although proponents of virginity testing argue that the participants consent to the procedure, women’s rights and public health advocates claim that the testing is traumatic to the girls regardless of the results. Betty Makoni, the director of the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe, characterizes this practice as sexual abuse.
Advocates say that helping young women and girls feel a sense of power in relation to their bodies and sexual decision-making is crucial to ensuring their sexual and reproductive health. Undergoing a test that checks their hymens implies that someone other than themselves-such as the State, their families, or their prospective husbands-is in control of their bodies.
In the end, advocates argue that virginity tests will only serve to stigmatize and marginalize young women who do not "pass" the test. Stigmatization and marginalization fuels the HIV/AIDS pandemic and makes prevention and treatment even more difficult, they say.
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Advocates say that this practice, which almost exclusively targets young women, constitutes discrimination, violates the right to privacy, may motivate girls to engage in behavior jeopardizing their health, and undermines girls’ sense of dignity and empowerment, contravenes international human rights standards.
Adopted by 179 countries in Cairo in 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action (ICPD) established a rights-based approach to sexual and reproductive health.
Virginity testing is being opposed by a wide-range of local leaders and non-governmental organizations. In South Africa, groups such as the Commission on Gender Equity and the Midlands Women’s Group have vocally opposed the sangomas (traditional healers) and traditionalists who are promoting the practice. In Zimbabwe, the Girl Child Network (GCN) is working to empower young women to resist virginity testing.
Map indicating countries where virginity testing has been reported.
Experiences and Perspectives
Nomalanga, who grew up in Sobantu, KwaZulu-Natal, remembers virginity testing being done in a room where a tester would sit on a grass mat wearing gloves. The girl would lie down, and the tester would open her vagina. Amanda Ndlangisa had a slightly different experience, where testers would pour a liquid into the vagina. Nana Buthelezi values the procedure for the status it brings.
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Dr. Fuziwe Dlakavu, a gynecologist, says there's no scientific basis for virginity testing, as every woman's body is different, and the hymen's presence isn't an indicator of virginity. She asks, “Why should women be subjected to such outdated patriarchal practices?
Nomalanga enjoyed the ceremonies and teachings associated with virginity testing, particularly the reed dance. In Amanda’s family, her grandmother decided to test the girls in the family herself at home, to avoid gossip in the community. Amanda hated being examined and prodded by her grandmother and other women. "Talk about sex was taboo in a traditional family like mine. No one explained anything to me about what sex was, what virginity was, or why I had to protect it."
Legality and Human Rights
In July 2005, the South African Parliament passed a new Children's Bill prohibiting virginity testing of children. The Bill has been met with outrage and public protest on the part of Zulu citizens. Traditional circumcision rites are also addressed in the new bill but are not banned. Instead, male children are given the right to refuse to participate in traditional initiation ceremonies which include circumcision.
Medical and Scientific Perspectives
A virginity test is the pseudoscientific practice and process of determining whether a woman or girl is a virgin; i.e., to determine that she has never engaged in, or been subjected to, vaginal intercourse. Virginity testing is widely considered controversial because of its implications for the tested women and girls as it is viewed as unethical, and because such tests are widely considered to be unscientific.
The process of virginity testing varies by region. Another form of virginity testing involves testing for laxity of vaginal muscles with fingers (the "two-finger test"). Among the Bantu peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa, virginity testing or even the suturing of the labia majora (called infibulation) has been commonplace.
Global Condemnation
Virginity testing - a gynecological examination conducted under the belief that it determines whether a woman or girl has had vaginal intercourse - must end, says UN Human Rights, UN Women and the World Health Organization (WHO). In a global call to eliminate violence against women and girls everywhere, this medically unnecessary, and often times painful, humiliating and traumatic practice must end.
The social expectation that girls and women should remain “virgins” (i.e. without having sexual intercourse) is based on stereotyped notions that female sexuality should be curtailed within marriage. This notion is harmful to women and girls globally.
Health Impacts of Virginity Testing
These examinations are not only a violation of women’s and girls’ human rights, but in cases of rape can cause additional pain and mimic the original act of sexual violence, leading to re-experience, re-traumatization and re-victimization. Many women suffer from adverse short- and long-term physical, psychological and social consequences of this practice. This includes anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. In extreme cases, women or girls may attempt suicide or be killed in the name of “honour”.
Performing this medically unnecessary and harmful test violates several human rights and ethical standards including the fundamental principle in medicine to ‘do no harm’. WHO recommends that this test should not be performed under any circumstances.
Recommendations:
- Health professionals and their professional associations should be aware that virginity testing has no scientific merit and cannot determine past vaginal penetration.
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