WUNRN
AFGHANISTAN - VIRGINITY RELATED
PENALTIES UNFAIR FOR WOMEN
Photo: Salma Zulfiqar/IRIN
Virginity is not mentioned in the Afghan penal system and other
laws, but hundreds of women unfairly face penalties over it (file photo)
“I saw a woman who was publically humiliated and tortured because she had
allegedly lost her virginity before her wedding night,” said Suraya Subhrang, a
women’s rights commissioner at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights
Commission (AIHRC). Extra-judiciary penalties, she added, were prevalent and
deep-rooted in the country.
Medical workers are often called in to prove a woman’s virginity – a
requirement for women preparing for marriage.
“Virginity and adultery tests are part of our normal work,” said Del Aqa
Mahboobi, a medical expert in
The tests involve an examination of the vagina to see whether a girl's or
woman's hymen is intact, but experts say it can be torn by factors other than
intercourse. When forced or coerced, according to Amnesty International,
virginity tests degrade women and are a form of torture.
But among Afghan communities, failing the test can result in so-called honour
killings, an under-reported crime usually carried out by the families and
relatives who believe a young girl or woman has brought shame on them.
“Honour killings recognize a man’s right to kill a woman with impunity because
of the damage that her immoral actions have caused to family honour,” the UN
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported in December 2010.
Such murders, it added, were simply based on deep-rooted cultural beliefs and
not on religion.
“Men usually go unpunished for ‘honour killings’,” Subhrang told IRIN. “But
could a woman kill her husband for illegitimate sexual relations?”
Honour issues
Raela* was forcefully taken to a medical examiner on her wedding night after
her husband accused her of losing her virginity and beat her. The examination
showed she had lost her virginity long before the marriage and the 22-year-old
was handed over to the judiciary for prosecution on charges of adultery.
Raela’s incarceration has devastated her family. They have to pay back almost
US$10,000 to their former son-in-law, which was allegedly spent on the wedding
ceremony.
“They have put their house up for sale and decided to leave this neighbourhood
because they cannot live with the dishonour,” said one relative, who spoke on
condition of anonymity.
While virginity is not mentioned in the country’s penal system and other laws,
say activists and lawyers, hundreds of women like Raela unfairly face serious
formal and informal penalties for the alleged illicit loss of this cultural
requirement.
Sexual intercourse outside marriage is a sin under Islamic jurisprudence and
the Afghan laws largely derived from it.
“Virginity is a natural stamp,” said Mawlawi Mohammad Qasim, a member of the
Supreme Court’s penal bureau. “When it is lost and the reason is proved to be
illegitimate sexual relations it implies adultery, which should be punished,”
he said adding that an unmarried person caught having sex outside marriage,
male or female, could be sentenced to three to five years in prison while
married adulterers received heavier penalties.
Unfair penalties
Women’s rights activists say the adultery law has too many problems and is
mostly used only against women. In some cases, the women are victims of rape.
“The law does not clearly distinguish [between] rape and consensual sexual
intercourse and treats rape victims as criminals and adulterers,” said Subhrang
from the AIHRC.
Although concealed and under-reported, rape is a crime that occurs across the
country every day, UNAMA said in a separate report in July 2009. “It is the girl or woman – the rape
victim – and not the perpetrator who carries the shame of the crime,” the
report said.
Demanding that men too face the law, Sheela Samimi, an advocacy officer with
the Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), said: “Can a girl ask [medical experts] to
test whether her would-be husband had sex before marriage and when proved wrong
would officials prosecute the man as they do a woman?”
With every female victim of adultery, she added, there was a man or men who
rarely faced justice.
*Not her real name