Female Cops Virginity Test In Indonesia “Degrading” and “Cruel” Says Report

The Human Rights Watch said in a report that the female cops virginity test is indeed happening in Indonesia. The Indonesian government subjects female applicants for Indonesia’s National Police to the “virginity tests.”

The “virginity tests” are conducted under Chief Police Regulation No. 5/2009 on Health Inspection (Pemeriksaan Kesehatan) Guidelines for Police Candidates. Article 36 of the regulation requires female police academy applicants to undergo an “obstetrics and gynecology” examination. While the regulation does not specify that a “virginity test” is to be administered as part of the exam, two senior policewomen told Human Rights Watch that it has long been the practice. The test is given early in the recruitment process as part of the applicants’ physical exam. Police Medical and Health Center (Pusat Kedokteran dan Kesehatan) personnel conduct the tests primarily in police-operated hospitals. Human Rights Watch found that the examination has included the discredited and degrading “two-finger test” to determine whether female applicants’ hymens are intact.

The police website also contain this:

“In addition to the other medical and physical examinations. Women who want to become policewomen are to undergo a virginity test. Policewomen must keep their virginity.”

Police spokesperson, Roni Sompie, told CNN, that all recruits, female and male, are subjected to thorough medical tests on the genitalia.

“Overall, the medical and physical examination has two main objectives. The first one is to make sure that the candidates’ health and physical condition will not harm them when admitted into police force. Secondly, it is to make sure that they do not possess any communicable diseases that will not allow them to perform maximally as trained police personnel,” Sompie said.

“As to the examination of the virginity, it is just a part of the whole medical and physical test, not intended to solely seek for the virginity condition. Or it can not be put in a perspective for the sake of finding out the virginity, instead, it is for the sake of the completeness of medical and physical examination.”

The Human Rights Watch report described the test, administered by Police Medical and Health Center staff in police hospitals in the cities of Bandung, Jakarta, Padang, Pekanbaru, Makassar, and Medan, as “discriminatory, cruel (and) degrading.”

“Virginity tests” have been recognized internationally as a violation of human rights, particularly the prohibition against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” under article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and article 16 of the Convention against Torture, both of which Indonesia has ratified.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the international expert body that monitors compliance with the covenant, states in a General Comment that the aim of article 7 is “to protect both the dignity and the physical and mental integrity of the individual.” Article 7 relates not only to acts that cause physical pain, but also to acts that cause mental suffering to the victim. Coerced virginity testing compromises the dignity of women, and violates their physical and mental integrity.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and other human rights treaties prohibit discrimination against women. Because men are not subjected to virginity testing, the practice constitutes discrimination against women as it has the effect or purpose of denying women on a basis of equality with men the right to work as police officers.