Turkey bans virginity tests

Turkey has ended a controversial law that authorised virginity tests for high school girls suspected of having premarital sex.

Virginity is highly valued in mainly Muslim Turkey. Forced gynaecological examinations in schools were common until 1999, when five students who did not want to submit to the test attempted suicide by taking rat poison.

The practice drew harsh criticism from human rights and women’s groups, and the government ordered a halt to the tests after the suicide attempts.

This week, the government made the ban official by changing a law on punishment in schools, removing ambiguous wording that allowed school administrators to ‘‘determine’’ whether girls were virgins. It is unclear whether any schools have conducted the tests since 1999.

The change eliminates reference to girls’ chastity but makes a broader reference to the expulsion of students not behaving properly in school.

Last summer, Health Minister Osman Durmus, a member of the far-right Nationalist Action Party, caused an uproar when he called for girls who were not virgins to be expelled from government-run nursing high schools and barred from enrolling in other state-run schools.