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From: TT
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Photo: Fareed Khan / AP / TT
Karachi residents protest against men’s violence against women after a notorious gang rape on a road near the city of Lahore. Image from September 12.
The much-criticized “two finger test”, which has long been used in medical examinations of rape victims in Pakistan, is banned by the Punjab provincial government.
Critics of the test earlier this year sued the government of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province with some 110 million people, in a bid to end the method, which dates back to the time of British colonization.
Proponents of the test claim that it can detect a woman’s “sexual promiscuity” and “honor” and whether she is used to sex. Critics say it is offensive, pointless, and also traumatic for those who have been sexually abused.
Saturday’s ban decision goes into effect with immediate effect. Even in southern Pakistan’s Sindh province, the method is being debated and more and more voices are being raised in favor of a national ban. In conservative and deeply patriarchal Pakistan, victims of sexual violence are often hesitant to tell what they have been through and many cases are never properly investigated by the police.
According to Sameer Khosa, the lawyer behind the lawsuit against the Punjab regime, “virginity tests” of the vaginal ring still exist in the country. Much needs to be done before harmful notions about women’s honor and virtue can be completely buried, she says.
Similar two-finger tests were banned in India in 2013 and in Bangladesh in 2018.
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