Virginity testing is becoming increasingly common in the UK. Not only is the practice itself invasive and traumatic, but its very existence is a potential tool in abusers’ armoury which they use to subjugate women.
Freedom Charity is pleased to announce virginity testing and hymenoplasty is now a criminal offence.
VIRGINITY TESTING
It is a means of control and is especially damaging because there are many varied reasons why a girl’s hymen may become damaged before they become sexually active. One victim known to Freedom Charity has described virginity testing as a “violation” and “sexual assault”.
Freedom Charity has been instrumental in raising both governmental and public awareness of this abusive practice and welcomes the proposed introduction of law which leads to these practices becoming criminal offences and future perpetrators being brought to justice.
Our helpline has received an increasing number of requests for help about virginity testing. Typically the girls are made to have the tests by relatives wishing to present them as virgins who will bleed when they have sex on their wedding night – even though studies have shown such bleeding is not routine. Grooms’ families are becoming more demanding and saying, ‘I know someone who has had a certificate, I want proof that this girl is a virgin.’
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Watch Aneeta Prem speaking to SKY news about this here:
SKY News - treated worse than an animal
Other sources of information can be found here:
Exposed: UK clinics still offering to ‘restore virginity’ before marriage
Dozens of clinics, private hospitals and pharmacies are offering controversial hymen repair surgery, an undercover investigation has revealed, as the government moves closer to banning the harmful practice.
Britain's 'Virginity' Clinics Uncovered
We go undercover to expose the clinics making money from so-called virginity testing and repair procedures that campaigners condemn as a violation of human rights.
Detained and forced to have a 'virginity test' - BBC World Service,