Lahore high court bans ‘virginity’ test

A COURT in Pakistan’s most populous province on Monday (4) outlawed virginity tests on rape victims – a longstanding practice in the country used to assess a woman’s so-called honour.

Critics of the tests, including an invasive “twofinger test”, had filed petitions in the eastern city of Lahore in a bid to have them outlawed.

The World Health Organization has previously said that there is no scientific merit to the examinations and considers them a human rights violation.

Declaring them illegal, Lahore high court said a virginity test “offends the personal dignity of the female victim and therefore is against the right to life and right to dignity”.

Proponents of virginity tests claim they can assess a woman’s sexual history, with the results often used to discredit rape victims. 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,” a statement released by lawyers behind the petition said.

Pakistan’s president had already moved to ban the two-finger virginity test – an invasive examination which involves a medical examiner inserting two fingers into a woman’s vagina – in December as part of a new anti-rape law. But it allowed for visual inspections of the hymen to assess tearing and scars to continue.

A similar case is being heard in the Sindh high court.