Source: Radio New Zealand
The Helen Clark Foundation is is calling for better laws to protect victims of sexual violence in New Zealand, including eradicating virginity testing. 123rf.com
Researchers say the practice of virginity testing is happening in New Zealand and it’s harming women.
The Helen Clark Foundation is calling for urgent law changes to better protect victims of sexual violence and reduce offending rates.
The think tank’s report, Addressing Sexual Violence in New Zealand, makes a number of recommendations, including adopting a clearer definition of consent in law, banning sexually explicit deepfake abuse, and eradicating virginity testing.
Researcher Sophia Harré said they did not know the extent of the practice in New Zealand but were concerned it is happening in some communities.
“There have been cases where medical professionals have been approached to conduct the proceedure and they’ve declined. We’ve heard talk that it might be happening by family members in community.”
She said virginity testing was when a woman or girl is subjected to a physical inspection of their hymen, while virginity policing involved checking for blood after sexual intercourse.
“These stem from myths around hymens that they will bleed or will be damaged when sexual contact occurs, these are incorrect.”
Harre said the practice was damaging, especially in cases involving sexual assault.
“It can have quite significant impacts on their position in society, it can impact their relationships, it can have consequences on their education and career opportunities later in life.”
Virginity testing is not illegal in New Zealand, and the UN has called on governments to ban the practice altogether and to carry out awareness campaigns.
The report recommends a number of steps in line with UN recommendations, including improved education for medical practitioners and legal professionals, research to inform community-led interventions, and legislation to ban virginity testing.
Labour’s Priyanca Radhakrishnan has lodged a members’ bill which seeks to amend the Crimes Act to criminalise virginity testing.
The proposed the Crimes (Virginity Testing Practices) Amendment Bill “seeks to protect vulnerable women and girls by amending the Crimes Act 1961 to introduce new offences that criminalise virginity testing and the related practice of hymenoplasty”.
Harré said the foundation supported the Bill as long as there was education and consultation for communities that may be practising virginity testing.
“There’s a risk that if we go really hard on legislation and ban it without having proper consultation with these communities that it could be driven further underground.”
Auckland clinical nurse specialist in family violence, Kathy Lowe, was interviewed for the foundation’s report and has been educating both medical professionals and communities about virginity testing for 30 years.
“For me it’s not a women’s issue it’s human rights issue, it affects men and women. Imagine if we told men that they had virgin semen and the first time they lost it they weren’t a virgin any more and they had to go to a doctor to prove that they were still a virgin before they were allowed to be married,” she said.
“It doesn’t make sense and yet we’re still doing that to women.”
Lowe said it was not possible to tell by looking at a hymen whether somebody has had sex.
“The majority of people say the first time you have sex that bit of skin gets broken then you’re not a virgin anymore and that’s how we can tell whether somebody’s a virgin, by that piece of skin being broken,” she said.
“The hymen is not a skin, it’s not a membrane, it’s not a seal. It’s actually a collar of stretchy tissue just at the entrance of the vagina…when you’re born with a hymen, the hymen has a hole the middle of it, you are born with the hole.”
There is no data about the practice of virginity testing and Lowe said it was a taboo subject in many communities.
“I truly don’t know which cultures do this and don’t but I think every culture in New Zealand has a myth around virginity.”
She hears about the prevalence of it from nurses and doctors who are asked – and decline – to conduct such examinations.
Lowe said it was also unclear if the practice of hymenoplasty was still conducted. The last time she heard of a case was 2013.
“They get the edges of the [hymen’s] hole and they stitch it together so that when you do have sex you’re going to bleed for sure and it’s going to hurt like hell because it’s scar tissue. In their mind they think they’re making themselves a virgin again when in fact the hymen was never sealed to start with.”
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
