Virginity Tests for High School Girls Dropped By Indonesian Officials After Public Backlash

Indonesian officials have dropped their proposal to require graduating female high school students to undergo virginity tests before they are allowed to receive their diplomas following a public outcry.

However, this did not deter a feminist organization from issuing a call to President Joko Widodo to end state discrimination against women, Buzzfeed reported on Wednesday.

Although the virginity test proposal for students has been scrapped, the Indonesian military and the police continue to implement the tests on their female applicants, according to Phelim Kine, the deputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch.

Institut Perempuan urged Widodo to end any government use of virginity tests, including among female police and military applicants.

"This is something he [Widodo] could very easily do, requiring little political capital," Kine told BuzzFeed News. "It's not a political heavy lift. You don't have to create a law, or coalition-build. You just send an order saying, 'No more. Stop.'"

Such virginity test was also once required for women who want to join national civil service, but this was halted following an investigation by the Human Rights Watch.

Last week, a council member in Jember city, East Java, proposed the virginity test for female students as part of a "good conduct" measure to curb the high rates of HIV among high school students in the region.

A lawmaker then called for an expanded virginity test for women to cover the entire province of East Java with a population of 2.3 million, saying he wanted to scare girls from indulging in premarital sex. "If they're not virgins any more, don't let them pass," local lawmaker Mufti Ali was quoted by Reuters as telling local media.

"We can't test the boys ... but at least with the regulation, girls will be afraid. The boys will be prevented from the act because girls will become unwilling," Ali said.

Following a public uproar at the proposal, Ayub Junaid, the vice chairman of the Jember city council, backed down on the proposal as he offered an apology "on behalf of the leadership and local legislative bodies...to the public, especially women, in particular girls and children," according local media reports.

This was not the first time Indonesian officials tried to implement virginity tests for school girls, said Ellin Rozana, the executive director of Institut Perempuan ("The Women's Institute") in an email to BuzzFeed News. In 2013, a city in South Sumatra considered requiring virginity tests as part of high school entrance in a bid to combat sex trafficking, Rozana said.

Local lawmakers made a similar proposal in 2010. District officials in West Java also attempted to hold virginity tests in 2007 to reduce the supply of pornography.

What all of these have in common, Rozana said, is "discrimination against women by the state" and a focus on "women/girls who lack morals" as an alleged policy problem.

Kine denounced the proposal, saying: "I think that the foundation for the virginity tests is one that's rooted in a desire to intimidate, a desire to instill fear, along with very mistaken views that there actually might be a medical purpose or efficacy in the test."

"For there to be a move by policymakers, by educators, by government officials to want to inflict the virginity test on women and girls really illustrates both a profound ignorance about medical reality and a real contempt for the rights of women and girls," Kine said.

The World Health Organization has already stated that the tests "have no scientific or medical value," Buzzfeed reported.

Human rights advocates have denounced the tests as "discriminatory gender-based violence."

Indonesia's top Islamic clerical body, the Ulema Council, also opposed the tests, saying virginity tests are not compatible with Islam.