Rethinking virginity testing

When the leading virginity testers of KwaZulu-Natal (they  prefer to be called genital inspectors), took their flock of virgins into to the streets of central Durban in South Africa to protest against the Children’s Bill, it was clear that they were prepared to fight the enemy in the trenches and on the beaches if they had to. Some said they were willing to go to jail for the cause, and would continue testing for virginity from behind bars.

 

Now I may be wrong but I somehow doubt that there are many virgins in our prisons who are eager to be inspected, certified and have their virgin pride restored. But if so, perhaps we should be thinking a bit laterally and considering the possibilities for prison reform. Imagine virginity testing as part of a more Africanised rehabilitation programme for criminal women. Passing the test at monthly inspections could contribute towards a reduction of a prison term. Certificates handed out just prior to release could help a woman to feel like she is starting afresh, something like a born-again virgin. Why not?  Current methods of prisoner rehab don’t seem to change anybody’s bad behaviour. It might be worth a try.

 

While this might sound ridiculous, our virginity testers are dead serious. The Children’s Bill seeks to impose a ban on testing, and the testers see it as an affront to their right to practice their culture. Virginity testing has not only been politicised but it has come to symbolise a whole range of actions perceived as part of an organised effort to undermine Zulu culture and heritage. In the eyes of many it looks like Zulu interest is under siege.

 

How do we move forward with this one?  Firstly we need to be honest about what our policy-makers are trying to do with this Bill, and then make no apology for it. The Children’s Bill seeks to make children’s rights consistent with the Constitution. It’s seen as a valuable contribution to the war against child abuse, which is at intolerably high levels in this country. That Constitution guarantees the right to privacy and bodily integrity, and upholds the precepts of gender and sexual equality. Virginity testing contradicts each one of these rights.

 

Rows of girls reclining on mats with their knees spread apart in the middle of a football field is anything but private. Old women with latex gloves checking between labia folds and pushing fingers upward to feel for an elusive hymen is an assault on bodily integrity. That it’s girls who are subjected to testing and not boys (though it does occur), puts the burden of responsibility squarely on the shoulders of girls and reinforces the gender inequality that makes them vulnerable to everything the testers hope to address. That it prejudices girls who aren’t virgins, knowing full well that a large proportion of girls have been sexually abused by family or neighbours and that a majority of girls’ early sexual experience has been coercive in nature, makes a mockery of the very notion of sexual equality. Virginity testing is fundamentally about discrimination based on sexual experience. Its basic purpose is to separate the flowers of the nation (virgins) from the rotten potatoes (non-virgins).

 

 

Yes it’s true that constitutional laws in much of the developing world are at odds with what people claim to be traditional practices and cultural values. Of course they are, and why is that?  Simply because most of those “traditional practices and cultural values” are vestiges of a previous social order designed to uphold male privilege and perpetuate the ideals of patriarchy.  Democratisation is about creating a new kind of social order, one that includes an improvement in the status of women and a questioning of all things that smack of discrimination. With modern constitutions giving expression to democratic ideals like gender justice and children’s rights, old practices like virginity testing and the values that they reflect are necessarily problematic. 

 

Some people now find such customs to be objectionable and demeaning, while others, most especially those whose power and privilege derived from the  pre-democratic social order such as kings, chiefs, traditional leaders and virginity testers, can be expected to reject anything that threatens to erode the practices and values that helped to legitimate their power and authority. Precisely because patriarchal privilege has been foundational in so many societies for so many centuries, it is at the heart of much that is perceived today as clashes between tradition and modernity. The clash itself illuminates the need for new cultural practices and values that accord with the democratic project and the aspirations of an enlightened citizenry.

 

Across Africa the practice of testing girls for virginity is being revived with vigour. In parts of Uganda tribal chiefs offer modern appliances such as refrigerators to girls who provide proof of their virginity at marriage. In October in Zimbabwe traditional leaders sent a directive to headmen in their jurisdictions to identify elderly people who could commence large-scale testing of girls for “moral and health reasons.” In Nigeria, local government has colluded with traditional authorities to promote virginity testing. Nine wards in Ogun state are due to start testing girls as a pre-condition for awarding them scholarships. Access to tertiary education based on academic potential may soon be a thing of the past.  A girl’s future will be determined by the state of her hymen. Is this really the Africa that hopes to compete in a world market? The growing trend of virginity testing makes a travesty of a continent keen to be taken seriously.

 

Testers and their supporters defend their profession by saying that testing identifies child abuse in the community, that it gives girls a sense of pride, provides support for remaining sexually inactive, and helps to prevent pregnancies, STIs and HIV infection. They have a whole list of claims aimed at garnering sympathy for their cause. But let us not be led astray. There is not a single shred of evidence that virginity testing has had a positive impact on any of these things. The bottom line is that we need to find NEW ways to teach our children, both boys and girls, to be sexually responsible and to protect themselves against human predators. We need ways that resonate with our aspirations as a society, ways that are modern, democratic and uphold the rights of all people, whether young, old, male, female, chaste, un-chaste, and all shades and variations in between.