Virginity test is humiliating, illegal says medical practitioner

Virginity test is illegal, Dr Oluwajimi Sodipo, a Consultant Family Physician at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, declared in Ilorin on Wednesday.

He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the side-line of a workshop for primary healthcare providers that the WHO had declared the practice as illegal.

He added that apart from the WHO declaration, the practice was archaic.

Virginity test is conducted for various reasons, chief of which are requests from parents or suitors to establish marriage eligibility of the female or employment eligibility.

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The WHO describes virginity test as a gynaecological examination conducted in the belief that it determines whether a woman or girl has had vaginal intercourse.

Sodipo said there was a global call by WHO to eliminate violence against women and girls, adding that the practice was medically unnecessary.

He added that the practice was oftentimes painful, humiliating and traumatic.

He argued that the concept of virginity test was a myth, as the absence of a hymen did not mean that a female was promiscuous.

“The perception that there must be blood-stained sheet at first intercourse to indicate virginity is not always scientifically correct,’’ Dr Sodipo stressed.