Doctors call for ban on virginity testing and hymenoplasty

BMJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. n2037
Author(s):  
Gareth Iacobucci
Keyword(s):  
Virginity Testing

VIRGINITY TESTING PRACTICES: THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheila Mokoboto-Zwane
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Bodily Integrity ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
Young Females ◽  
Unwanted Pregnancies ◽  
The Right ◽  
Democratic Elections ◽  
Virginity Testing

Controversy continues to surround the age-old practice of virginity testing, which in South Africa made a visible comeback around the time of the country’s first democratic elections when most South Africans began to feel free to practise their cultural beliefs without fear. It coincided with the period when the HIV pandemic began to take hold. It is practised mainly in some countries of Asia and Africa, and in South Africa it is practised mainly amongst amaZulu. It is believed that this practice prevents unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), especially HIV/AIDS, as well as engendering a sense of pride in teenage and young females, in particular. However, some individuals, organisations and sectors of the community frown upon the practice because it violates constitutional laws that protect the right to equality, privacy, bodily integrity and sexual autonomy. The purpose of this article is to present current discourse on the cultural practice of virginity testing and the controversies surrounding this discourse. This article draws its arguments from the existing literature on virginity testing.

scholarly journals Virginity testing: a systematic review

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose McKeon Olson ◽  
Claudia García-Moreno
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Virginity Testing

scholarly journals Virginity Test in Police Recruitment System: Evidence from Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 2600-2611
Author(s):  
Manotar Tampubolon
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Police Officer ◽  
Quantitative Study ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Evolutionary Advantage ◽  
Recruitment System ◽  
Virginity Testing

It is difficult for women to become police officers in Indonesia. One of the mandatory requirements is to become a virgin. Women who are no longer virgins cannot pass the selection. However, if the woman's hymen is damaged not because of sexual intercourse but because of an accident, she still hopes to become a police officer. This study aims to examine the virgin criteria as a requirement to become a policewoman in Indonesia. This quantitative study examines the virginity for police admission based on virginity requirements from a human rights perspective and the concept of innocence. Inspired by the idea of purity from Hanne Blank that celibacy does not reflect a known biological necessity and provides no demonstrable evolutionary advantage. This article says that police virginity testing is not essential and makes up discrimination of women's opportunity to become a police officer because there is no correlation between virginity and police duty. This article evaluates this activity performed Indonesian police force from the lights of human rights. It criticizes the policy development specification of Indonesia which is even poor than India and Muslim countries as even in this country women empowerment is prioritized and respected. This country is needed to incorporate changes in this policy.

scholarly journals Building a South African Human Rights Culture in the Face of Cultural Diversity: Context and Conflict

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Cantius Mubangizi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Potential Conflict ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
The Face ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Virginity Testing

Abstract South Africa has faced enormous challenges since the advent of democracy in 1994. One of the difficulties in the post-apartheid era has been the building of a human rights culture in the context of substantial cultural diversity. In this paper, the constitutional, judicial and institutional contexts – which have consolidated and supported the expression of human rights in the face of cultural diversity – are reviewed. The focus on cultural rights in the constitution is discussed, and the relevance of several constitutional institutions in terms of ensuring human rights, is mentioned. With a clear understanding of the constitutional, judicial and institutional contexts in place, the paper discusses the potentially inherent conflict between human rights and cultural rights, using gender-related issues as a proxy. Several examples of this potential conflict are discussed, including female circumcision, virginity testing and polygamy. The importance of human rights education for informing the debate about cultural and human rights in South Africa is emphasized. The answers to the challenges associated with the clash between cultural rights and human rights are not simple, although pragmatically – in addition to the role of the available constitutional, judicial and institutional structures – they could reside in a cross-cultural debate.

The Question of Virginity Testing in Turkey

Bioethics ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 256-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarap Pahinodlu Pelin
Keyword(s):  
Virginity Testing

scholarly journals Culture, Tradition, Custom, Law and Gender Equality

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikateko Joyce Maluleke
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Social Grouping ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
Female Relative ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Harmful Traditional Practices ◽  
Virginity Testing ◽  
Culture Tradition ◽  
Female Genital

 Traditional cultural practices reflect the values and beliefs held by members of a community for periods often spanning generations. Every social grouping in the world has specific traditional cultural practices and beliefs, some of which are beneficial to all members, while others have become harmful to a specific group, such as women. These harmful traditional practices include early and forced marriages (Ukuthwala as practised currently), virginity testing, widow's rituals, 'u ku ngena' (levirate and sororate unions[1]), female genital mutilation[2] (FGM), breast sweeping/ironing, the primogeniture rule, practices such as 'cleansing' after male circumcision, and witch-hunting.[1]      Levirate unions occur when the deceased's surviving male relative inherits the widow of the deceased. Sororate unions occur where the widower is inherited by the deceased wife's surviving female relative. The inherited widow or widower becomes the wife or husband to the surviving relative of the deceased.[2]      FGM is not just the cutting of the clitoris; it includes disfigurement, and the changing of the form or elongation of the labia as practiced by Tsonga and Sotho communities.

Circularity

2020 ◽  
pp. 99-132
Author(s):  
Durba Mitra
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Behavior ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Individual Case ◽  
Forensic Assessment ◽  
The Body ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Natural Form ◽  
State Administrators ◽  
Virginity Testing

This chapter offer glimpses of how women appear in forensic medical descriptions as sexually deviant bodies—often disembodied, always empirically verifiable. It analyzes medico-legal accounts of abortion, descriptions that overlapped with the forensic assessment of rape, virginity testing, and infanticide. Different authorities, including coroners, medical doctors, policemen, state administrators, and social commentators, utilized a circular form of reasoning where anatomical description was united with a speculative sociology of Indian women's sexuality, and then read back onto the body to discern the meaning of the anatomical violence on the body. These case studies of the body utilized typological categories that link women's social status to their sexual behavior. Over the course of individual case studies, social typologies were read back onto parts of women's bodies to comprehend the meaning of physical evidence. This circularity appears in legal medicine as a natural form of reasoning: a logic that seamlessly united anatomical descriptions of sexualized bodies with the ethno-scientific assessment of social identity.

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