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Virginity tests, emancipation and morality contrasts in Africa
2005-08-12 06:56:38
By Michael Eneza
Demonstrations were being experienced in South Africa lately as school girls went to the streets to protest a law that was about to be promulgated, to ban all virginity tests in schools.
This legislation, meant to underline the government’s resolve for women’s emancipation, has scrubbed tender sentiments of the value of a maiden, a girl whom parents and suitors will be proud of. These sentiments aren’t done with, yet.
As the protest went into full swing and it appeared that the girls were being supported by conservative sections of society, including traditional authorities and born-again churches, confusion set in.
Whom was the legislation seeking to serve, and was it indeed furthering aims of liberty or was reducing all girls to the same, those with an ideal in life mixed up with those who may not? Was it important to keep these ideals?
It was quickly noticed that the school girls enjoyed considerable support from vast sections of traditional society, the supposed anchor of conservatism.
Usually this conservatism is also the anchor of what families consider to be moral, namely an ability of children, girls for that matter, to grow up and be married, start their own families without blemish falling on them.
If they start precocious sex, chances of this start evaporating.
Nor was it easy for schools to integrate this habit into their programs, and instead it was apparent it has to be organised at the community level, for instance in churches.
For it is usually the case that schools often test for pregnancy, and with a widening liberalism or women’s emancipation, even this is proving to be a little inessential.
So long as a student can attend classes, the need to get away for maternity is rather slim.
For most countries however, pregnancy is consonant with studies only at college or university level, where girls are treated as adults, and students form organisations that negotiate with authorities.
Schools aren’t in this category, as the girls (like the boys) still depend on their parents, and have no contractual relations (like loans) with the government.
Nor can they form any associations or committees to negotiate with authorities.
With South Africa being the most activist country in the world perhaps with exception of the United States, chances that school girls even at secondary school are still subservient are limited.
Beijing Plus Ten has had vast campaigns for the reawakening of all women to their rights, removal of discrimination for students who fall pregnant, but other campaigns have altered matters.
Pregnancy tests stem from belief of sex as shameful, which is partly underlined in the moral bent of the anti-Aids campaign, abstinence now replacing condoms...
In activist South Africa at the moment, and increasingly also many other countries, what is shameful is the wish for schoolgirls to continue with virginity tests, as a matter of pride.
NGOs that have for a decade or more campaigned for a world not dominated by masculine values can scarcely debate the value of a virginity test, and only awaited legislation to abolish those exercises outright. But the girls swore they will continue.
By a contrast of sorts, this spectacle resembles the conflict, often noticed in Kenya rather than Tanzania, as to whether female circumcision should continue.
Of this issue the campaigners obtained an upper hand in most areas, as they were able to demonstrate the devastating harm it often produces, perhaps inciting death out of excessive bleeding, etc.
What is unclear was why so many societies cherish it, pursue it relentlessly.
In various parts of Kenya, communities at times questioned the campaigners, asking NGOs not to interfere with their customs - unlike Tanzania where ethnic groups first listen to the ruling party, lacking authority of their own.
How far excisions have stopped cannot quite be said, but noticeably, African communities in far away Europe must often face the force of French or British law to stop circumcision. That’s how deep it is....
Unlike the so-called female genital mutilation, activists have little or nothing to say about virginity tests but to repeat the oft-questioned premise that girls are masters of their destiny, control their own bodies, etc.
Not many parents are convinced that this is the case, and always remove a little anguish if their daughter seems ready for a virginity test.
It means she isn’t on the way to make a mess of her studies and her future, not yet.
The popularity of virginity tests is another indication that issues of morality and how deeply expressed they are in society are often missed by campaigners.
Their position is however at times hopelessly contradictory, for exactly the same campaigners, wishing for total freedom of girls in what they do with their bodies, may in other circumstances push for draconian law on ’rape.’ Gesturing thrice at a woman fetches three years in jail.
Incidentally, the popularity of the Sex Offences Act in 1998 is tied up with protests on the South African bill to ban pregnancy tests, in that girls had to be protected from irrelevant advances from men.
In that case it is good that girls undergo virginity tests, for instance those who were swearing back in 2003 that they would not engage in sex until marriage.
If that is the case, why insist on total freedom with ’bodies,’ banning tests?
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