WUNRN
Jordan Fatwa
Bans 'Virginity Checks'
August 3,
2009
The Media Line Staff
A Jordanian
institute has issued a fatwa, or Islamic ruling, banning the practice of
pre-marital virginity examinations for women.
The
Jordanian Committee of Religious Decrees and Islamic Studies said that such
examinations were haram, or prohibited under Islamic law, Al-Arabiyya reported.
The fatwa
said such examinations were a form of abuse against women.
"We
view this practice as a degrading treatment for women and one which violates
women's rights to physical integrity and privacy," Nadya Khalife, a
women's rights researcher with Human Rights Watch told The Media Line.
"I'm happy to note that the Council finds this practice humiliating,"
she said, adding that the rights group also sees the practice as inherently
discriminatory. "It's definitely a step in the right direction."
Last month Mumin Al-Hadidi, the head of Jordan's National Center for
Forensic Medicine, said he conducted around 150 "virginity
examinations" a year and said the checks were usually conducted on young
women who are about to get married.
The edict
still allows for virginity checks to take place if requested by the judiciary
system.
Al-Hadidi
said he did not advise subjecting women to virginity examinations unless it was
in order to confirm or refute a suspicion of rape.
"It's
reached the situation where many people won't get married unless they are
certain the women's hymen is intact," he said.
"I'm
against checking a woman's virginity before marriage, because it damages the
women's dignity and casts doubt on her honor."
Virginity
checks aim to rule out the possibility that the woman has engaged in sexual
relations with another man, which can be a marriage breaker.
Pre-marital
sex is frowned upon in Jordan, and in some cases, women caught or even
suspected of sexual relations outside of wedlock are killed by male family
members, on grounds that they tainted the family reputation.
Such 'honor
killings' take the lives of around 20 women in Jordan each year. Victims of
honor killings can also include women who have extra-marital affairs or have
been raped.
Perpetrators
often face mitigated punishments, if at all.
As
of August 1, Jordan is operating a newly established tribunal that will focus
exclusively on suspected perpetrators of honor crimes, in an effort to speed up
the legal process and bring killers to justice.
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