Lahore, Pakistan (CU)_ On Monday, a court in Pakistan’s most populous province banned virginity tests on rape victims, which is a long-established traditional procedure used in the country to determine the so-called dignity of a woman. In an attempt to get them banned, opponents of the tests, including an invasive “two-finger test”, filed petitions in the eastern city of Lahore.
The World Health Organization has stated previously that the tests do not have any scientific validity and finds them a violation of human rights. Lahore High Court declared the virginity tests to be illegal. The court said, “virginity test offends the personal dignity of the female victim and therefore is against the right to life and right to dignity”. A significant part of Pakistani society exists under an oppressive honor system under which victims of rape face social shame and abuses are mostly underreported.
Supporters of virginity tests say they can analyze the sexual history of a woman, with the findings often used to dishonor victims of rape. The lawyers who supported the petition released a statement which said, “the ruling was a much needed step in the right direction of improving the investigative and judicial processes and making them fairer for victims of sexual assault and rape”.
In December, with regards to a new anti-rape law, Pakistan’s president had already moved to ban the two-finger virginity test, which is an invasive examination of the hymen where a medical examiner inserts two fingers into the vagina of a woman to test her virginity. However, it required visual inspections of the hymen to determine the tearing and scars to proceed further.
In November, the Punjab province banned the so-called “two-finger” test by medical examiners in rape cases. In the Sindh High Court, a similar case was filed and women’s rights advocates expect that the Lahore court’s law would set an example for a nationwide ban. The two-finger test was prohibited by India in 2013 followed by Bangladesh in 2018.
