KABUL (SW) – A recent report by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has revealed that women continue to undergo forced gynecological examination in the country despite the Penal Code came into effect in Feb. 14, 2018, criminalizing forced “virginity” testing.
This research is second in a series of studies by AIHRC on women’s rights.
In total, 129 women from 13 provinces of Afghanistan have filled the questionnaire of this research. These women are those who have passed the forced gynecological examination in the last three years, since the Penal Code came into effect. Among these women, 62 were married (48.1% of all respondents), 34 were single (26.4%), 12 were engaged (9.3%), 14 were widowed (10.9%), and seven of them were divorced (5.4%)
In addition, out of all 129 respondents, 78 of them (60.5%) were in prisons, nine (7%) were in police custody, and 42 others (32.6%) were in the safe shelters.
The findings of this study show that forced gynecological examinations, i.e. virginity examinations and examinations performed to prove the crimes of rape, adultery (Zena) and sodomy are against women’s human dignity, violating the women’s human rights.
Exercising these kinds of examinations is against the provisions of international conventions and documents, such as the UN Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention against Torture, it said.
The report said given the nature of such tests, they are derogatory and disparaging acts and against human dignity of women. Under Articles 7 and 24 of the Constitution of Afghanistan and paragraph 5 of Article 13 of the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women, as well as Articles 6-10 of the Law on the Prevention of Torture, any act which violates human dignity, is strictly prohibited.
ENDS
