While American “feminists” prattle on about “Manterruptions” and other trivial nonsense, lawmakers in East Java (the island that houses Indonesia’s capitol, Jakarta) are considering imposing virginity tests on school girls.
Jember’s City Council wants to institute virginity tests as a prerequisite for high school graduation. Test would be administered only to girls.
According to the Jakarta Globe:
“What surprises us the most is they have had sex several times and with different partners,” Habib Isa Mahdi, a lawmaker from the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura), told Detik.com on Friday. “Moreover, the Ministry of Social Affairs said that Indonesia is in an emergency situation against pornography — that’s what drives us to make such regulation.”The idea was first debated during a meeting between the city council’s Commission D and the Jember Education Agency on Wednesday. The council is drafting a regulation on “good conduct,” which includes an article installing a virginity test as a requirement for female students’ graduation.The city council argued the regulation was necessary because many secondary and high school students were engaging in pre-marital sexual activities. Isa claimed that based on the data gathered from local hospitals, around 10 percent of Jember’s approximately 1,200 HIV/AIDS patients were students. The Jakarta Globe could not immediately verify Isa’s claims.
“For the children” — the leftist control-centric mantra that’s now gone global.
“There’s a need to protect our children,” he said. “Jember has to be brave to act to save them.”The Jember Chapter of Nadhlatul Ulama (NU), the second-largest Muslim organization in Indonesia, opposed the proposal.“Virginity is very sensitive. If a female student cannot meet the requirement, she’ll be the subject of gossip in the society,” Jember’s policy chief for NU, MN Harisuddin, told the organization’s official website on Thursday. “Say the bill is passed, the test would be simple to conduct, but why is it only done for the female students? How about the boys?”Mufti Ali, a lawmaker from National Awakening Party (PKB), told East Java news portal BeritaJatim.com this week that he wanted to expand the proposal beyond Jember to become a provincial law.“If they’re not virgins anymore, don’t let them pass,” he said. “It may sound like a joke, but it’s serious. It’s for the sake of the future.
But what about the boys?
“We can’t test the boys,” he told the East Java news portal. “But at least with the regulation, girls will be afraid [to have pre-marital sex]. The boys will be prevented from the act because girls will become unwilling. This will scare them, that if they [have sex], they will not graduate.”And proving that he has an answer to everything to defend the proposal, Mufti says that victims of rape undergoing the test have nothing to worry about.“The medical team will be able to tell [if they have been the victim of a sexual assault],” he said.
The Jakarta Post wrote a scathing article imploring newly elected President Joko Widodo to speak out against the inhumane practice of virginity-tests, pointing out that the WHO maintains virginity tests “have no scientific validity.”
Phelim Kine, Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director said in a press release, “The Indonesian government can’t feign ignorance about the abusive nature of such ‘tests’. They have been recognized internationally as violations of the right to non-discrimination and the prohibition against ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’ under international human rights treaties Indonesia has ratified.”
Indonesia’s long-standing affair with virginity tests made international headlines late last year when reports surfaced that the humiliating tests were mandatory for female police officers.
Egypt outlawed virginity tests during the Arab Spring after female protesters were subjected to tests while protesting the government.
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[Featured Image from Wikimedia Image Commons]
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