A demonstration against virginity tests in New Delhi, India, in 2009 Raveendran/AFP/Getty

Doctors, police and employers should be banned from using so-called virginity tests on women and girls, and those who continue to use them should be prosecuted, the World Health Organization has declared.

Such tests are used around the world in rape investigations and even in hiring women for certain professions. The WHO is calling on governments to ban these practices, and to educate doctors, police and others that these tests don’t indicate past sexual activity.

For centuries, many people have believed that the hymen – a fringe of tissue inside most vaginas – can be used as a sign of virginity. But there is no evidence that the hymen can reveal if a woman has had sex, as underscored by a review of available research co-authored by the WHO’s Claudia Garcia-Moreno last year.


In one study, doctors found that the differences between the hymens of women who had or hadn’t had penetrative intercourse were insignificant. Another study found that hymen inspection accurately identified less than 10 per cent of the women who had experienced penetration. Yet in Indonesia, a woman wanting to join the military must have a “virginal” hymen.

Virginity tests are also used to humiliate women in prisons, including demonstrators in Egypt’s 2011 Arab Spring. In South Africa, girls who fail virginity tests may be ostracised, and some employers have held policies of only hiring women who pass.

Women who fail virginity tests – regardless of whether they have ever had sex – suffer socially and psychologically, says the WHO. Some attempt suicide; others are killed by their families.

Virginity tests don’t stop at the hymen. In rape cases in India and neighbouring countries, medical or police examiners insert two fingers into the vagina, to assess the “laxity” of the vaginal muscles, thought to reflect whether a woman has become “habituated” to sex.

But vaginal muscle tone reflects no such thing, says the WHO. Nevertheless, in court a diagnosis of past sexual activity can weigh against an unmarried woman who has been raped. Aruna Kashyap of Human Rights Watch says that doctors in India “obsess about vaginal evidence”, even though rape often leaves no vaginal injuries.

India’s most recent guidelines on how to treat women who report being raped no longer include the “two-finger test”. But the guidelines have only been adopted in nine of India’s 36 states and territories. “A lot needs to be done,” says Kashyap.

While virginity tests are most common in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the WHO says they also occur in immigrant communities in rich nations, including the UK.