Indonesia’s police force makes female recruits endure a virginity test. “Female recruits hoping to join Indonesia’s police force are forced to undergo two-finger ‘virginity tests’, a rights group has found, a practice that leaves the women traumatized, humiliated and in pain. The test is listed publicly as a requirement to enter the force and performed as part of the chief of police’s health inspection guidelines for new candidates, which requires women to complete an ‘obstetrics and gynecology’ exam,” according to an article in The Guardian. One woman, interviewed by Human Rights Watch, said “Entering the virginity test examination room was really upsetting. I feared that after they performed the test I would not be a virgin anymore. They inserted two fingers with gel … it really hurt. My friend even fainted.”
The Indonesian Police maintain the exam is to test for sexually transmitted diseases, in spite of complaints about its traumatizing effects. “Although women often complain to their superiors about the exam – which measures whether a woman’s hymen is still intact – and a former head of police personnel agreed to abolish the test in 2010, it continues to be practiced in the same way it has for decades,” writes Kate Hodal in The Guardian, adding “while premarital sex is common in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, female virginity is often lauded. An education board in south Sumatra came under fire last year for planning virginity tests as part of its high-school admission requirements.”
