Dark knees, firm breasts, an intact hymen — inconclusive but satisfactory ways of speculating about a girl’s virginity. Whether these women are given a discreet marking or garish certificate declaring their status (and risking rape because of it), virginity testing is, for the most part, a well-intentioned attempt to promote abstinence and abate the spread of the HIV/Aids pandemic.
Gender activists and academics have opposed the practice since its revival in the mid-1990s, but it is still gaining momentum.
Now these groups are calling for new strategies that will meet testers halfway.
“Virginity testing is alive and well — not just in rural but in urban areas, too,” says Suzanne Leclerc- Madlala, a social anthropologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal who recently released a report on the resurgence of virginity testing.
The Commission on Gender Equality (CGE) was at the forefront of opposition at the turn of the century, when virginity testing first came under the media spotlight.
In a 2000 report, the CGE boldly commented: “Beyond representing a breach of constitutional laws that protect rights of privacy and bodily integrity, [the commission takes] issue with the discriminatory nature of the practice — the fact that it is usually only girls who are tested.”
The most shocking reports of virginity testing include women being examined unhygienically, and how many stuff meat and lace into their vaginas to fool the testers. Venues for these tests include churches, schools and football fields, and attract girls as young as five.
“Calling for a ‘revival’ of discriminatory practices in the name of cultures and traditions that have been distorted and corrupted over time not only undermines the modern agenda for gender justice, but it is also dangerous,” Leclerc-Madlala concludes in her report.
CGE commissioner Tebogo Maitse says the organisation has no direct initiatives to do away with virginity testing because its primary purpose is to monitor the implementation of gender equality. She says it would initiate a project specifically devoted to intervening in virginity testing if the practice became a bigger problem but “so far, we have not received any complaints”.
Leclerc-Madlala says virginity testers are going to carry on regardless of outside views and, since the practice came under the media spotlight, it has become more private.
Now that the buzz has died down, the commission has been meeting with virginity testers to work with them and try and find common ground.
“Testers want to change [their procedures] and are eager to update their skills,” says Leclerc-Madlala. The commission’s efforts are intended to look at ways to modernise these practices so that they become helpful in addressing current problems.
There are no reports suggesting that girls are coerced into taking the tests, but the practice does reflect a larger cultural climate in South Africa. Not enough is being done to address culture and HIV/Aids in the country, says Leclerc-Madlala.
“The middle-aged and elderly make up the bulk of today’s ‘cultural revivalists’, who are capitalising on a sense of lost control and desperation by calling for a tighter grip on virginity. From their perspective, herein lies the ‘appropriate’ strategy for fighting the scourge of Aids — with female genital inspection as the final solution.”
It is impossible to determine how far-reaching the repercussions of virginity testing are. One important trend that continues to have an impact on girls, notes Leclerc-Madlala, is the economic sphere. She reports incidents of employers reserving jobs for virgins and testing workers monthly to encourage them to maintain their virginity.
Some community leaders have used this testing as a money-making scheme by either demanding that girls pay for it or by levying a fine on families whose daughters do not “pass”. “Today, virginity testing and virgin girls themselves have become commodities in a modern market economy,” concludes Leclerc- Madlala.
“The revival of old-style local practices to address a modern global pandemic like Aids will do more harm than good as long as marked gender inequalities, sexual violence and hegemonic, masculine sexualities are left unchallenged.”
South Africa is in need of more comprehensive educational campaigns around safe sex, says Quarraisha Abdool-Karim, an epidemiologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
“Young people are interpreting and acting on information in very different ways.” In conservative communities, she says, youth often conform to imposed abstinence values because they are the path of least resistance — but are simultaneously pressured to have sex. “[It is a] very complex social response to incomplete messages.”
“Youth have a poor understanding of issues of sexuality,” says Leclerc-Madlala. Sex education should be introduced into schools not only to teach biology, but also to allow women to take ownership of their bodies.
There is also a need to educate parents to provide support for and have confidence in their children. The existing expectation is that virginity testers will do the job for them.
Robert Morrell, professor of education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal who has researched youth attitudes towards HIV and safe sex, says: “There is no silver bullet, we have to craft things. Often the best approach to HIV is through the side door, not head-on.”
He says that models need to be developed that encourage youth to understand themselves and relationships in equitable ways.
Morrell’s qualm is that the burden of virginity testing is falling on girls. “I think that is a real problem.”