A Pakistani court has banned the practice of subjecting survivors of rape to a virginity test in an unprecedented decision.
The Lahore high court ruled on Monday that the virginity test has no legal basis and “offends the personal dignity of the female victim”.
Judging, Judge Ayesha Malik said: “The virginity test is highly invasive, having no scientific or medical requirements, but performed in the name of medical protocols in cases of sexual violence.
“It is a humiliating practice, which serves to raise suspicions about the victim, instead of focusing on the accused and the sexual violence incident.”
In a 2018 report, the UN said virginity testing, a clinically dubious internal examination of a woman’s hymen, still takes place in 20 countries and can be performed with or without consent in cases of rape or when a woman is accused of “moral” Crimes such as premarital sex or flight.
Premarital sex remains a crime in Pakistan for men and women and carries a five-year prison term.
“The verdict is the culmination of a history of activism and built on the hard work that the feminist movement has been engaged in for decades. The test is part of a larger patriarchy structure that confuses victimization with female characters and perpetuates the ‘perfect victim’ myth, ”Nighat Dad, a lawyer and human rights activist, told the Guardian.
“The existing barriers for women to report cases of rape are insurmountable, but this historic verdict will go a long way towards dismantling those barriers,” she said.
In October, Human Rights Watch said that virginity tests have long been part of the routine of criminal prosecutions in Pakistan, based on the misogynistic assumption that a woman “used to sex” is less likely to have been raped. Police and prosecutors used the results to accuse victims of rape from illegal sex and to treat them as criminals.
Pakistan’s human rights minister, Shireen Mazari, praised the sentence, which will apply only in the state of Punjab, on Twitter.