France declares war on "virginity certificates"

"The dignity of women is not negotiated."

It is difficult to contradict the French Minister for Citizenship, Marlène Schiappa.

Under this principle, the former head of Equality in the Government of Emmanuel Macron has become the main promoter of the prohibition and criminalization of "virginity certificates" that the French Executive wants to include in its future law against religious separatism, focused on especially in Islamism.

Although the main national and international medical institutions also condemn this practice, experts on the ground warn that the path of criminalization is not, necessarily, the best way to end a tradition that requires, above all, a change of mentality.

That is, education rather than punishment.

“Before their wedding, some try on a white dress, others a ring or make the guest list… but for others, the preparations for the ceremony are less joyous.

For some, getting married means undergoing what is called a virginity test (…) for a professional to examine and 'certify' your virginity.

How one makes sure of the pedigree of an animal, of the 'purity' of its blood, before buying it ”, denounced Schiappa on the eve of Macron's speech against Islamist separatism last week.

Although the president did not mention this point, Schiappa has since confirmed that the prohibition of such certificates will be included, in one way or another, in the law that will be presented in December.

Two years ago, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN-Women and the World Health Organization (WHO) called for a ban on virginity tests.

In France, also the Order of Physicians, responsible for the deontological regulation of the guild, asked last year to "reject" the demands for virginity certificates, as did the French National College of Gynecologists.

So far however, there is no formal ban.

What the Government proposes is "to penalize those who issue these certificates" and, eventually, "also those who request them, such as parents," Schiappa said this Monday on the BFMTV chain, where she has advanced that it will also seek to ban other “non-medical” certificates such as the one that testifies to a supposed allergy to chlorine to prevent the girls from having to go to the pool, another of the usual places of shock in terms of secularism.

Women like Fatiha Boyer, from the Ni Putas Ni Submissas women's association and a Muslim woman who is very active in the fight against religious extremism, applaud the initiative.

“As a woman, as a mother of three girls, I consider it abject and a dishonor for a woman to have to present this certificate to her future husband and in-laws.

It is a very good idea to remove them, it is something ancestral that must be excluded from society, ”she says.

“It is a very bad idea.

We are punishing the wrong person ”, contrasts gynecologist Ghada Hatem, chief physician of La Maison des Femmes in Seine-Saint-Denis, on the Parisian periphery, which welcomes vulnerable women and victims of violence.

“If parents, siblings, communities could be penalized, fine.

But punishing doctors is the opposite of helpful.

If the doctor cannot receive them, they have no one to talk to, it is a wrong answer ”, he insists in a telephone interview.

Hatem recognizes that it issues this type of certificate.

Without doing, he points out, any virginity test.

She is not the only one resistant to legislation.

The National Association of Abortion and Contraception Centers (Ancic) is also sounding the alarm.

“Like the Government and feminist associations, we believe that the demands of these certificates constitute violence against women, an attack on their dignity and on equality between women and men.

We know how much social hypocrisy those certificates demonstrate and that no professional can certify a woman's virginity, ”he said in a statement.

“At the same time, we are aware that in some extreme situations, women are in real danger.

It is then when rejecting the writing of a certificate constitutes a new violence, and the professionals make the decision that seems most ethical to them: to make that document to protect them ”, adds the text.

"I understand your gynecological point of view", answers Schiappa. "I am a minister. My responsibility is to say what the Republic admits and what it does not admit."

Nobody knows how to quantify the problem, since these "certificates" are not official or registered, so for Hatem the government proposal does not make sense anyway.

Doctors like her assure that they only receive this type of request two or three times a year.

“It is something marginal, this law is for advertising, it is not the most serious problem.

The real problem is why these families have not been able to change their opinion about the right of women to dispose of their bodies, why are they still so obsessed with purity and virginity, not that these girls need the support of a doctor " insists Hatem, who calls for improving sex education in schools and youth centers.

"Even if it only affects a few women, it is already too much", underlines the Ministry of the Interior on which Citizenship depends.

Despite official assertions, the measure has yet to be completed and approved by the deputies, a process that will not conclude before next year.