Virginity Test Is A Criteria For Joining Police Force

Indonesia’s national police have been criticized for conducting virginity tests for prospective female officers applying to join their ranks. Alarabiya.net reports.

Human Rights Watch has condemned the act describing the practice as harmful and humiliating.The rights group revealed that women applicants are required to be both unmarried and virgins, and the virginity test is still widely used despite the denial of some senior police officials that the practice has stopped.

Human Rights Watch interviewed some young women who underwent the test recently.

The women told the rights group how they were forced to strip naked before female medics gave them a “two-finger test”, to see if their hymens were intact.

“I don’t want to remember those bad experiences. It was humiliating,” said one 19-year-woman who took the test in the city of Pekanbaru, on western Sumatra island, and whose identity was not disclosed.

“Why should we take off our clothes in front of strangers? It is not necessary. I think it should be stopped.” She said.