‘Treated worse than an animal’: virginity tests on women and girls at levels ‘never seen before’ | UK News

The number of young women fearful of being forced to undergo virginity tests and contact charities for help is “never seen before” numbers.

A young woman who was taken to a clinic on Harley Street by her father for a virginity test told Sky News that she “begged” the doctor not to perform the very intrusive exam and said it did “traumatized” and “treated her worse than an animal”.

Virginity tests, an exam to see if a woman’s hymen is intact, and hymenoplasty, the surgical procedure to “fix” the hymen, are not illegal – but campaigners want both procedures to be prohibited, claiming that they are forms of gender-based violence.

Zara (not her real name) is a British woman in her twenties from the Bangladeshi community of London. Before her forced marriage, the groom’s family demanded proof that Zara was still a virgin.

“He walked into my room and said, ‘Tomorrow I have to go to a medical clinic in central London to do some tests.’ My question to him was, ‘What kind of test is this? ? “” Zara said.

Her father, she said, couldn’t tell her, but left it up to her mother to explain to Zara that she would have to see a doctor in central London who would examine her to see if she was still a virgin. Zara’s family knew she had been in a relationship and they told her that it was important for them to protect their “honor”.

At the clinic, Zara was asked to sign a consent form, but she hoped the doctor would see that she did not want to take the exam.

“I walked in and begged the other doctor there. I told him I didn’t want to do it, can he lie to the family and say he had the test done? He said no , he can’t do that because he’s been paid, “she said.

“He asked me to sit on the couch and put my legs up. It was a two-finger test and obviously I was a virgin. I was traumatized …