It is common knowledge that in South Asian countries like India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, physical vaginal tests are used to determine whether women and girls have been raped.
Despite it having no scientific basis and being banned in India, these tests are used as evidence/basis of judgment in courts.
Human rights lawyer and co-author of the latest report, Divya Srinivasan, (from the women’s rights organisation Equality Now and Dignity Alliance International) labelled the test “a human rights violation by itself”.
Sumeera Shrestha, executive director of the Nepali organisation Women for Human Rights, told The Guardian, “It is demeaning and inhuman. It is not just about whether rape has happened, but it’s like testing your virginity.”
For those unaware of the details, the test involves a medical practitioner inserting two fingers into the vagina of a rape survivor in an attempt to determine if the hymen is broken, as well as to test laxity in the vagina. If the hymen is still intact, the test is used to declare that rape could not have taken place, though rape does not necessarily break the hymen. The test is often wrongly used to blackmail victims who were sexually active and are put under a spotlight for many unnerving rounds of interrogation and emotional trauma to prove innocence.
However, five countries in the South Asian subcontinent – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka – permit the use of evidence detailing the sexual history of a rape survivor. Srinivasan said this was a relic from colonial times. Shrestha said, “Women are threatened. Also human rights defenders who support women are threatened. When we work with widows who have been raped by family members, they cannot openly say that because [the perpetrator] threatens her children.”
The report claims that in Bangladesh, India and Nepal, more than 60% of the survivors interviewed reported coming under pressure to settle or compromise in their case.
