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| Africa North |
| Egyptian lawmaker's call for virginity tests draws fire |
| 2016-10-03 |
| [MSN] A women's rights group has filed a legal complaint against an Egyptian politician who called for mandatory virginity tests for women seeking university admission, the al-Masry al-Youm newspaper reported Sunday. It quoted Maya Morsi, head of the state-sanctioned National Council for Women, as saying the complaint demands the expulsion from parliament of Ilhami Agena and a criminal investigation into his actions. She said the politician was harming the reputation of Egyptian women, men and the country itself. Agena said in an interview last week that virginity tests were needed to combat the proliferation of informal marriages, known as "gawaz orfy," between students. Virtually expense free, such marriages have become more popular in recent years because of high youth unemployment and a shortage of affordable housing. The gawaz orfy is widely viewed as a religiously sanctioned way of having premarital sex, a taboo in mostly conservative and majority Moslem Egypt. Moslem holy mans have spoken out against such marriages. In Egypt, as in other conservative, Moslem countries, a young woman's virginity is widely seen as a matter of family honor, the loss of which could prevent her from getting married. The military was alleged to have conducted virginity tests on 19 women tossed in the slammer You have the right to remain silent... after troops violently broke up a protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square in March 2011, shortly after longtime President Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... resigned in the face of a popular uprising. |
| Posted by:Fred |