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Youngsters speak out on virginity testing
01/08/2000 12:51 - (SA)
Nomalanga Mkhize
Pietermaritzburg - The issue of virginity testing came under the spotlight recently when beaded, bare-breasted young girls took to the streets of Pietermaritzburg to declare their support for the practice.
They marched down Longmarket Street to the parliament building where they gathered to sing and chant: "young girls should not be using contraceptives. Forward with testing."
This was in response to the Gender Commission who have denounced the testing as a violation of women's rights.
Traditional practitioners however, say the crisis faced by the South African youth with HIV/Aids has left them no choice but to revive the practice.
Willowfountain is one community among several that decided to return to virginity testing to deal with the alarmingly high rates of teenage pregnancy, rape, Aids and child abuse.
While the community leaders are at odds with the Gender Commission over the issue, the young boys and girls partaking in the practice seemed confident about the decision they made to be tested.
"I went myself," says S'bongile Madlala (14) when asked who told her to go. She says she found out about testing when Ntombizonke Gule, one of the co-ordinators of the tests in Willowfountain, told her about it.
"There are diseases such as Aids out there and doing this ensures that I do not do anything to get it," she said.
Siwe Msomi (14) said it quite simply: "So we do not get pregnant."
Virginity testing on its own however, does not ensure that teenagers do not become sexually active.
The girls said that the practice instills in them a sense of pride in their bodies because they keep themselves pure. They did say however, that this makes them the subject of ridicule by their peers who say that they were missing out.
"They laugh at us. They mock us, calling us 'virgins'," says Buyi Mthembu (16), on how her schoolmates react to being told about the testing.
The subject has also been criticised by some as focusing only on girls and not doing anything about boys.
But as the composition of the marching group showed, boys are very much part of the practice.
Sanele Zuma (13) is one of the boys who has chosen to be tested and said that it is worse for him.
"The boys that do not go for testing laugh at us so I do not really talk about it to them. They do not really know what it is about," he said.
Speaking to the teenagers, it seems that they are happy with the practice and they seem to understand what they are doing and are able to give sound reasons for why they chose to do it.
They said that the system of virginity testing educates them about sex, Aids and pregnancy.
They strongly denied that their testers are involved in any sort of child abuse.
They said that one reason they staged the march is to tell people that they made a free choice to be tested and want to continue doing so.
The Gender Commission however, is opposed to virginity testing.
Commissioner Beatrice Ngcobo said that virginity testing infringes on the rights of the individual and does not to respect their privacy.
She said that the tests exploit the fact that girls are physically different from boys and therefore places the burden of sexual responsibility on them alone.
"Why is it that girls are tested more than boys?" she asked. "We are trying to establish equality but this practice emphasises gender inequality," she continued.
Tester Gule said that boys and girls are tested equally. She said that men test the boys.
Gule said that the Gender Commission is sitting "up there" making condemnations without realising the desperate situation on the ground.
She said that through the testing they have discovered cases of sexual abuse that the children have been afraid to report and have taken matters to the police.
"We need to protect our children. We also need to educate them to be proud and unashamed about their young bodies.
"Our committee has strict confidentiality laws and we do not tell anyone about the children's sexual status. The commission accuses us of abuse when we look to see if our children are safe. There are men out there who are doing the damage but the blame comes to us."
Ngcobo argued that "purity begins at home" and ought not to be the responsibility of the testers.
President Thabo Mbeki has said that Africans must look for African solutions to modern problems. It seems this is what proponents of virginity testing are doing.
On the hand, the Gender Commission has made it clear that culture cannot be used as an excuse when it comes to human rights.
- The Witness
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