France divided over the abolition of “virginity certificates”. Doctors: “It was a mistake to ban them, so girls are not protected”

France is divided into virginity certificates. Just the day the corrections to the invoice should have been made “Darmanin-Schiappia”, which calls for the abolition of virginity certificates and holds the doctors who issue them criminally responsible, group of gynecologists and doctors wrote a lyrics open in Launching to launch a counter-appeal, opposing the ban: “Doctors in their studies do not solve the question of secularism, separatism or other important social problems. They have to do with the physical or psychological suffering of the human being. The virginity certificate in question is a document proving the virginity of a womanan essential condition to be tested before marriage in some traditional families of different monotheistic religions“.

Of course, even the signatory doctors, the appeal reads, believe that this practice is the daughter of a macho, macho and retrograde culture, but banning virginity certificates and criminalizing the doctors who issue them means, they say, “Attack the consequence while neglecting the cause, which is rooted in ignorance and fear. Only education will empower these young women. Not issuing a certificate is not an act of protection of the Republic or of promotion of secularism. Even less – they conclude – to sanction doctors who work with their patients ”. Among the other ten signatories you can read the names of the president of the feminist collective Cfcv Emmanuelle piet, of the president of Gynécologie San Frontieres (Gsf), Claude rosenthal and the director of the department of obstetrics-gynecology at the Bicetre hospital in Paris.

The project of Darmanin-Schiappa law (respectively the Minister of the Interior and former Minister of Health) reform the 1905 text, later revised in 2018: The objective is limit the autonomy of the Islamic religion with respect to the rules of the French state. Last February was President Emmanuel Macron in person to state the main lines of the project to modernize society: “In the Republic you cannot ask for virginity certificates to get married. In the Republic it should never be accepted that the laws of religion are superior to the laws of the Republic ”.

And it is precisely in this wake that the Minister of the Interior, Gerald darmanin, proposed to sanction virginity certificates: “Some doctors still dare to certify that a woman is a virgin to allow a religious marriage – explained Darmanin -, despite the condemnation of these practices by the Council of the Order of doctors. Not only will we formally prohibit it, but we will propose its penalty ”. On the other hand, however, the problem posed by French doctors and gynecologists is that of abandoning girls to clandestine practices, forcing them to travel abroad or abandoning them to themselves.

By Isabelle derredinger, Secretary General of the Order of Midwives, “certifying virginity is an anatomical trifle, but failure to provide this document can lead to put women in danger “. “Explain and dismantle prejudices” is the objective of another gynecologist interviewed by The world, Ghada hatem, who created the Saint-Denis Women’s House, a particularly difficult city in the Parisian suburb, which welcomes women who are “vulnerable or victims of violence”: “When I see that the woman who asks me has the means, that she can get by without them, I refuse to issue such a certificate. I explain to her, I talk to her about women’s rights, about the struggles of the generations that preceded her so that women can dispose of their bodies. But in some cases, especially very young girls, my priority is first and foremost protecting them. And if the delivery of a virginity certificate is the only way, I do it and I take responsibility ”.