Rights groups decry Afghanistan 'virginity tests'

[Khostai]

Afghan commission questions legitimacy of exam for women accused of adultery, as HRW describes tests as sexual abuse.

The Independent Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan has voiced concern over "virginity tests" carried out on women or girls accused of sex outside marriage.

The commission, known as the AIHRC, said females were forcibly subjected to the invasive vaginal and rectal tests after being accused of "moral crimes" by judiciary institutions.

The results of the examinations were then used as evidence in the defendants' trials.

The national institution interviewed 53 women and girls - some as young as 13, who had been accused of having sex outside marriage, which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison in the country.

A large majority of them said they were forced into virginity tests by government doctors. Twenty of them were examined more than once.

The AIHRC also questioned the legitimacy of the methods used in the tests, saying they were being conducted without considering scientific inaccuracies and misinterpretations, as well as corruption in government institutions, and technical insufficiency that could affect the exams' results.

'Bogus' tests
Heather Barr, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch's women's rights division, criticised the exams as "unscientific" and "bogus".


"Many people mistakenly believe that virginity can be determined because the hymen is always broken when a woman or girl has sexual intercourse for the first time.

"This is simply not true. Some girls are born without a hymen; hymens often break during daily non-sexual activities, and some hymens remain intact after sexual intercourse," Barr said.

"Purported virginity examinations are so unreliable that the World Health Organization has said that they have no scientific validity and health workers should never conduct them."

She also noted that "spurious" charges of sex outside marriage are often a form of punishment for women who fled forced marriages or domestic violence and called on the government to ban the "virginity tests".

"Afghan President Ashraf Ghani could abolish these exams through an executive order. Recognising everyone's inherent dignity, respecting human rights, and appreciating real science over pseudo-science all demand he do so."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/afghanistan-virginity-tests-160301085544004.html

[Khostai]

Wow isnt leaving under Islamic law sooo great??? OMG what a bless to be ruled by devine law.....-_-

[tilla_jogian]

Wow isnt leaving under Islamic law sooo great??? OMG what a bless to be ruled by devine law.....-_-

Afghandu don't blame Islam for your own ****ed up culture.

[Khostai]

Afghandu don't blame Islam for your own ****ed up culture.

Porkistany, in the hundreds of years of Afghan culture there was never a ****ing test to check if the girl is virgin or not. Since the state became implementing Islamic laws this came in to being. It has everything to do with Islam.

[tilla_jogian]

Porkistany, in the hundreds of years of Afghan culture there was never a ****ing test to check if the girl is virgin or not. Since the state became implementing Islamic laws this came in to being. It has everything to do with Islam.

Afghandu you should be happy with progress, now they are using advance technique to determine if one is virgin or not unlike centuries ago.

[Khostai]

Afghandu you should be happy with progress, now they are using advance technique to determine if one is virgin or not unlike centuries ago.

shut your porki cow piss drinking mouth. Its was normal in your faul dirty porkistan to do this. Not in Afghanistan.

[DaZahroJaam.]

i am really confused about how i feel regarding this matter. our current generation has skewed off the moral chart of decency pretty badly and being stoned to death on mere accusations is far worse than going through the humiliation of having to go through a test like this.
HOWEVER,
who is going to compensate those who are proved innocent at the end for the humiliation of having to go through something like this?? i don't care for those who claim they have the right to keep their sexual lives private in afghanistan. as an afghan, no you don't.

so where is the middle ground?? how do you fix this fault in the afghan society without humiliating innocent women?

[DSM0305]

I am sorry to be the guy who break it to you people, but the whole point of this virginity test is, that it is not accurate. The hymen does not determine whether one is virgin or not. This is why this have become an issue, not because of humiliation or other factors. This is why it is controversial. If one could really determine whether one is virgin or not, just by looking at the hymen, then this wouldn't have been an issue to begin with in those societies.

[KGODB]

i am really confused about how i feel regarding this matter. our current generation has skewed off the moral chart of decency pretty badly and being stoned to death on mere accusations is far worse than going through the humiliation of having to go through a test like this.
HOWEVER,
who is going to compensate those who are proved innocent at the end for the humiliation of having to go through something like this?? i don't care for those who claim they have the right to keep their sexual lives private in afghanistan. as an afghan, no you don't.

so where is the middle ground?? how do you fix this fault in the afghan society without humiliating innocent women?

You cant claim that the right to keep sexuality private is not available in Afghanistan and then decry the misuse of virginity tests; the very raison d'etre behind virginity tests is to allow for public regulation of sexual morality....which wouldn't happen, if society respected the private rights of the individual

[KGODB]

Afghandu don't blame Islam for your own ****ed up culture.

stupid troll

the public regulation of morality is based on Islam, that regulation takes many forms, virginity tests being one of them

[DaZahroJaam.]

You cant claim that the right to keep sexuality private is not available in Afghanistan and then decry the misuse of virginity tests; the very raison d'etre behind virginity tests is to allow for public regulation of sexual morality....which wouldn't happen, if society respected the private rights of the individual

i firmly believe that positive change to a society is brought gradually, not suddenly. regardless of how well planned it is or what your intentions are.
a person who is about to get stoned to death in the middle of a village over false accusations of sexual immorality is in more need of having someone save his right to live over his or her right to privacy.

in order to defend someone's right to privacy, you need for them to be alive, first. in the long run, we can focus on their rights to privacy and other good things like that but the immediate respond or priority in a situation as dire as one where someone innocent is buried alive under piles of stones is to save their lives at the cost of their right to privacy.. at that point, we are a little beyond one's right to privacy.
..so yeah, priorities.

[Shamlawar Khurasani]

People who invented these tests deserve to be impaled.

[DaZahroJaam.]

People who invented these tests deserve to be impaled.

shut up.

[KGODB]

i firmly believe that positive change to a society is brought gradually, not suddenly. regardless of how well planned it is or what your intentions are.
a person who is about to get stoned to death in the middle of a village over false accusations of sexual immorality is in more need of having someone save his right to live over his or her right to privacy.

in order to defend someone's right to privacy, you need for them to be alive, first. in the long run, we can focus on their rights to privacy and other good things like that but the immediate respond or priority in a situation as dire as one where someone innocent is buried alive under piles of stones is to save their lives at the cost of their right to privacy.. at that point, we are a little beyond one's right to privacy.
..so yeah, priorities.

I agree with you 100%. It is precisely because of the gradual need for change that unfortunately we have to put up with stupidity like virginity tests

[BarakzaiAbdali]

stupid troll

the public regulation of morality is based on Islam, that regulation takes many forms, virginity tests being one of them

I would beg to differ based on the actual texts and applications. When we make a statement that something is "based on Islam" we have to qualify that. Is it based on the actual literal text by knowledgable people? Is it based on a cultural interpretation that of some sort of tribal fusion?

Take for instance this hadith:

[/QUOTE]“All of my ummah (nation of followers) will be excused, except for the mujaahireen (those who make their sins known). And verily it is a kind of mujaaharah (exposing one’s sins) that a man does something (sinful) at night, and then in the morning, when Allaah has screened his sin for him, he says, ‘Hey So-and-So! I did such-and-such last night…’ And the night passed with His Lord screening him, and he wakes up casting aside the screen of Allaah from himself.”[/QUOTE]

And its applicability here, where perhaps, speaking purely as intelligent beings and not as studied theologians:

Narrated Abu Huraira: A man came to Allah's Apostle while he was in the mosque, and he called him, saying, "O Allah's Apostle! I have committed illegal sexual intercourse.'" The Prophet turned his face to the other side, but that man repeated his statement four times, and after he bore witness against himself four times, the Prophet called him, saying, "Are you mad?" The man said, "No." The Prophet said, "Are you married?" The man said, "Yes." Then the Prophet said, 'Take him away and stone him to death." Jabir bin 'Abdullah said: I was among the ones who participated in stoning him and we stoned him at the Musalla. When the stones troubled him, he fled, but we over took him at Al-Harra and stoned him to death.

Some of interpreted this to mean that the man ought not have divulged this matter to the state and that once he made it a state matter - well, it became an issue of public importance.

Modern states also have obscenity laws which on an extreme, one might deem as "regulating a personal matter"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._California

The above Supreme Court decision is well known to Americans for its deliberate vagueness and deference to local customs in defining what can result in one being charged with obscenity.

However, to the meat of the matter - the virginity tests. Even then, I would say that you are off on the matter based on the religious texts themselves... consider the more serious matter of adultery. The Quran dictates regarding proofs of innocence or guilt that a woman being accused based on the word of her husband can take serial oaths and absolve herself of punishment.:

And those who accuse their wives [of adultery] and have no witnesses except themselves - then the witness of one of them [shall be] four testimonies [swearing] by Allah that indeed, he is of the truthful...

And the fifth [oath will be] that the curse of Allah be upon him if he should be among the liars.....

<H2 class=text-left data-reactid=".1ufa2h8eolc.0.1.2.0.0.2.$24-8-ayah.1.1:$0.1">But it will prevent punishment from her if she gives four testimonies [swearing] by Allah that indeed, he is of the liars....

<H2 class=text-left data-reactid=".1ufa2h8eolc.0.1.2.0.0.2.$24-9-ayah.1.1:$0.1">And the fifth [oath will be] that the wrath of Allah be upon her if he was of the truthful.

</H2></H2>