Indonesia urged to stop military 'virginity tests'

[Bosonic]

Source: AFP

Jakarta (AFP) - Indonesia faced calls Thursday to stop virginity tests for women seeking to join the military, with a leading rights group calling the practice "cruel, inhuman and degrading".

Human Rights Watch said interviews with female members of the military showed that the examination, normally conducted through a "two-finger test" to ensure the hymen is intact, was required of women joining the armed forces or planning to marry military officers.

The armed forces defended checking female applicants' virginity, saying that people of low morals could "damage the military", but denied that those planning to marry officers were also subject to the checks.

This is just the latest controversy around virginity tests in conservative, Muslim-majority Indonesia, with the national police facing criticism last year for forcing female applicants to undergo the examinations.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/indonesia-urged-stop-military-virginity-tests-091958607.html

[Helen Borg]

1. I have a good idea for why it was done in the first place...

" she was "shocked" that the doctor performing the test was a man. "

[barbtries]

2. so wrong.

21st century and so far to go. sometimes it really feels as if humanity is galloping back toward the dark ages.

[7962]

3. Un-freakin-believeable. And yet they actually try to JUSTIFY it. nt

[SkyDaddy7]

4. No surprise...

Would love to hear how Reza Aslan & Glenn Greenwald would spin this but we won't because they ignore reality.

[Little Tich]

5. I think that some men's obsession with controlling the reproductional functions of women stems from

fear. Free and independent women probably give them nightmares.

[SunSeeker]

6. Unfuckingbelievable. nt

[CanonRay]

7. A sick, sexually repressed culture

dominated by sick,, sexually repressed men.