Jakarta:

Indonesia's new women officers are required to be single and virginal, but the digital penetration test the police medical officers use as part of their physical examination leaves them feeling traumatised and humiliated, according to interviews conducted recently by Human Rights Watch.

In 2010, the then-head of police personnel, Brigadier General Sigit Sudarmanto, announced that the invasive testing procedure would stop. But still the National Police job recruitment website confirms that: "In addition to the medical and physical tests, women who want to be policewomen must also undergo virginity tests".

Eight female police applicants in six Indonesian cities who endured the "two finger" test as late as this year have told researchers from the human rights body of the pain and humiliation involved.

One young applicant, who was 18 when she was tested in Bandung, near Jakarta, in 2013, said she had learned about the test "only when I was about to take the physical examination".