UK government moves to criminalize ‘virginity repair’ surgery and tests

A law to criminalize “virginity repair” surgery, which is known as hymenoplasty, has been introduced by the British government.

An amendment was made to the health care bill on Monday, 24th January, noting any procedure that attempts to reconstruct the hymen will be illegal no matter if the individual undergoing the surgery consents or not.

An increasing number of clinics, private hospitals, and pharmacies offer the surgery, which promises the restoration of virginity, with a large number of girls and young women coerced into the procedure, according to WION News.

The purpose of this procedure is to make a girl or woman bleed when she next has sexual contact by creating a fake hymen using scar tissue. As the government agreed to criminalize virginity testing last July, campaigners, including doctors and midwives, had called for the surgery to be outlawed

Hymenoplasty can never be justified on medical grounds, says Dr Edward Morris, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He said that they have been campaigning for the introduction of a ban on both virginity testing and hymenoplasty alongside women’s health and rights organisations, as both are linked with violence against women and girls.

Neither of these practices have a place in the medical world and should never be performed, he said adding that any time they learn that someone is performing these procedures, they will inform the General Medical Council.