Dec 8, 2019 05:48 PM
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsod...fghanistan
EXCERPT: . . . And the tests are, in fact, a global issue. Virginity tests have been documented in at least 20 countries around the world, including Egypt, Indonesia and South Africa. And according to the U.N., increased globalization in the past century has resulted in requests for and cases of virginity testing in countries that had no previous history of the practice, for example, Belgium, the Netherlands and the U.K.
The test is administered for a variety of reasons: to determine whether a woman can go to school, get married, get a job — or whether she is a victim of rape. According to the U.N., virginity tests are often performed by inspecting the hymen for tears or for the size of its opening, or inserting fingers into the vagina, to determine whether a girl or woman has had sex. WHO states that there is no evidence that the test can prove that a person has had vaginal intercourse or not.
[...] In Afghanistan, reproductive rights activist Farhad Javid has been trying to free girls and women who have been jailed for failing a virginity test. In 2018, he met with the president Ashraf Ghani and his wife, first lady Rula Ghani, to request the release of some 190 women and girls who who were jailed in the country's Balkh province for failing a virginity test. In Afghanistan, premarital sex is considered a moral crime.
Javid is the Islamic policy adviser for Marie Stopes U.S., a global family planning organization. He told the Ghanis that virginity tests are unscientific and medically unnecessary. The U.N. called for a ban in 2018. He also told the couple that he had visited the women in jail several times and that they were suffering. That meeting with the Ghanis was supposed to be 30 minutes but lasted two hours, says Javid, who spoke to NPR from Kabul in August. "She wanted to listen," he says of the first lady... (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: . . . And the tests are, in fact, a global issue. Virginity tests have been documented in at least 20 countries around the world, including Egypt, Indonesia and South Africa. And according to the U.N., increased globalization in the past century has resulted in requests for and cases of virginity testing in countries that had no previous history of the practice, for example, Belgium, the Netherlands and the U.K.
The test is administered for a variety of reasons: to determine whether a woman can go to school, get married, get a job — or whether she is a victim of rape. According to the U.N., virginity tests are often performed by inspecting the hymen for tears or for the size of its opening, or inserting fingers into the vagina, to determine whether a girl or woman has had sex. WHO states that there is no evidence that the test can prove that a person has had vaginal intercourse or not.
[...] In Afghanistan, reproductive rights activist Farhad Javid has been trying to free girls and women who have been jailed for failing a virginity test. In 2018, he met with the president Ashraf Ghani and his wife, first lady Rula Ghani, to request the release of some 190 women and girls who who were jailed in the country's Balkh province for failing a virginity test. In Afghanistan, premarital sex is considered a moral crime.
Javid is the Islamic policy adviser for Marie Stopes U.S., a global family planning organization. He told the Ghanis that virginity tests are unscientific and medically unnecessary. The U.N. called for a ban in 2018. He also told the couple that he had visited the women in jail several times and that they were suffering. That meeting with the Ghanis was supposed to be 30 minutes but lasted two hours, says Javid, who spoke to NPR from Kabul in August. "She wanted to listen," he says of the first lady... (MORE - details)
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