A plan to make female high school students undergo mandatory
virginity tests has been met with outrage from activists, who argue
that it discriminates against women and violates their human
rights.
Education chief Muhammad Rasyid, of Prabumulih district in south
Sumatra put forward the idea, describing it as "an accurate way to
protect children from prostitution and free sex". He said he would
use the city budget to begin tests early next year if MPs approved
the proposal.
"This is for their own good," Rasyid said. "Every woman has the
right to virginity … we expect students not to commit negative
acts."
The test would require female senior school students aged 16 to
19 to have their hymen examined every year until graduation. Boys,
however, would undergo no investigation into whether they had had
sex.
The plan has met with some support from local politicians, who
said the test would help cut down on "rampant" promiscuity in the
district.
"Virginity is sacred, thus it's a disgrace for a [female]
student to lose her virginity before getting married," Hasrul Azwar
of the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS)
told the Jakarta Post.
The proposal seems to be in response to increasing cases of
premarital sex,
local website Kompas reported, including the recent arrest of
six senior high school students for alleged prostitution.
It is the third plan of its kind in Muslim-majority Indonesia, where
similar drafts were proposed in West Java in 2007, and again in
Sumatra in 2010, but dropped after a public outcry.
Local and national MPs, activists, rights groups and even the
local Islamic advisory council have all denounced Rasyid's plan as
potentially denying female students the universal right to
education, in addition to targeting girls for an act that may not
have even been consensual, such as sexual assault.
"There are female students who may have lost their virginity due
to an accident − it is not their fault," South Sumatra legislative
council deputy speaker HA Djauhari told local media.
The National Commission for Child Protection also denounced the
plan as an attempt to curry "popularity" among religious
conservatives, and called the move "excessive".
"Loss of virginity is not merely because of sexual activities,"
said Arist Merdeka Sirait of the commission. "It could be caused by
sports or health problems and many other factors."
Just how the test would be implemented − and what consequences
it could incur were it to be passed − is not yet clear, prompting
local teachers to question whether those without intact hymens
would still be allowed to attend classes.
Indonesia's education and culture minister, Muhammad Nuh,
condemned the plan and said the district needed "a wiser way to
address the issue of teen sex".
Virginity is a prized possession among many Indonesians,
particularly in rural areas, and rapidly changing mores in a
population of 240 million can sometimes create tension among the
country's more conservative elders and its large, more moderate
youth.
Last year saw lawmakers propose a ban on miniskirts because
"provocative clothing makes men do things", while in the
shariah-law province of Aceh, women have been
ordered to sit side-saddle on motorbikes in order to better
obscure the "curves of a woman's body".