{"id":188075,"date":"2025-12-17T10:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T10:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/188075\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T10:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T10:27:07","slug":"government-considering-ban-on-virginity-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/188075\/","title":{"rendered":"Government considering ban on \u2018virginity testing\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Family and sexual violence prevention minister Karen Chhour has made a formal request to the minister of justice seeking legislative changes to outlaw the invasive pseudoscientific practice of virginity testing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Justice minister Paul Goldsmith says he\u2019ll be seeking advice on whether New Zealand should ban virginity testing, a pseudoscientific cultural practice the World Health Organisation has labelled a human rights violation. The moves comes after family and sexual violence prevention minister Karen Chhour asked the minister to collaborate on an amendment to the Crimes Act 1961, following the release of a Helen Clark Foundation-led report that found virginity testing to be taking place in Aotearoa.<\/p>\n

Virginity testing, which involves women and girls having their genitalia inspected to assess whether they have engaged in vaginal sex, was labelled a human rights violation by the World Health Organisation in 2018. It is considered a cultural practice \u2013 reportedly most common in Asia<\/a>, the Middle East<\/a> and Africa<\/a> \u2013 which is often performed without the victim\u2019s confirmed consent, and leads to significant physical and mental impacts.<\/p>\n

The Helen Clark Foundation\u2019s Addressing Sexual Violence in New Zealand report, released in early December, found the practice is likely to be occurring locally. Just how widespread it is on our shores, whether it is performed by a doctor or community member, and how many New Zealand girls and women are sent overseas to receive the procedure is unknown, though anecdotal evidence gathered for the report points to these issues being a reality.<\/p>\n

\"APaul Goldsmith says he will be seeking advice on virginity testing legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the broader context of sexual violence, we\u2019ve obviously done a huge amount over the last couple of years, particularly around stalking and name suppression for convicted sex offenders,\u201d Goldsmith told The Spinoff. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more to do, and [virginity testing] is one of the issues that\u2019s been raised. So, we\u2019ll take a look at it, and we want to keep making progress in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minister Chhour told The Spinoff she had been aware of the practice, but was disturbed to learn about its prevalence in Aotearoa following The Spinoff\u2019s coverage of the report<\/a>. Chhour said she had zero tolerance for practices that allow abuse against women and girls, and while the government can\u2019t control what happens to New Zealanders who receive the procedure overseas, it does have the power to ban it here.<\/p>\n

She sent a letter to Goldsmith on Tuesday calling for the practice to be legislated against. In the letter, Chhour described virginity testing as a \u201charmful practice that violates the dignity and rights of women and girls\u201d which \u201chas no place in New Zealand\u201d, and said the Centre for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, the interdepartmental executive board formerly known as Te Puna Aonui, had offered support to the Ministry of Justice to collaborate on drafting legislation \u201cas quickly as possible to prevent further abuse\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"Minister for children Karen Chhour speaks in parliament (Hagen Hopkins\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wellbeing and autonomy of women and girls cannot be compromised by practices that are rooted in stigma and misinformation,\u201d Chhour wrote. \u201cI would appreciate your support to outlaw this barbaric practice and better protect women and girls from this form of sexual violence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Virginity testing is not an explicitly illegal practice in Aotearoa, but it could meet the definition of sexual assault if tried in court. If performed without consent, virginity testing could be considered a sexual violation under the Crimes Act, according to the Clark Foundation report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Image: World Health Organisation.<\/p>\n

Labour MP Priyanca Radhakrishnan lodged a member\u2019s bill earlier this year calling for a ban on virginity testing and hymenoplasty surgery, a procedure that repairs a torn hymen, as well as the sending of girls and women overseas to receive the procedure. It\u2019s a similar bill to one lodged by Labour MP Vanushi Walters towards the end of the previous parliamentary term in 2023, and would only be introduced to parliament if drawn randomly from the ballot, or if 61 or more non-executive members indicated support for it.<\/p>\n

Virginity testing and hymenoplasty were outlawed in the UK in early 2022, following campaigning by Conservative MP Richard Holden, who was made aware of the practice\u2019s prevalence in the UK and its disproportionate effect on immigrant women by a BBC investigation. Britain has its own history of the practice, with more than 80 immigrants (largely from Asia) subjected to virginity tests by immigration officials in the 1970s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Family and sexual violence prevention minister Karen Chhour has made a formal request to the minister of justice…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[492,156,6148,118137,111,139,69,118138,135,118139,28431],"class_list":["post-188075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-comments-enabled","tag-entertainment","tag-justice","tag-karen-chhour","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paul-goldsmith","tag-politics","tag-sexual-violence","tag-virginity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}