A few decades ago, no one would have believed that a Western European country would have to resort to legislation to ban virginity tests in order to protect the lives of women and girls, yet here we are.
The Swedish government is now preparing to criminalize the practice, which currently only carries the risk of professional disciplinary action if discovered.
According to the proposal, medical professionals who partake in “virginity control” and issue “virginity certificates”—based on the observation of the hymen—or carry out surgical procedures aimed at restoring the hymen will be subjected to criminal charges.
“These proposals aim to make these acts punishable and to allow their perpetrators to be convicted, which is not the case at the moment,” Socialstyrelsen, the Swedish government agency in charge of social services, explained. The new legislation is expected to come into force by December 2025 at the latest.
The World Health Organization (WHO) regards the concept of virginity tests as unscientific and a violation of women’s sexual integrity, and called for it to be banned globally back in 2018. According to UN Women, the practice violates human rights and jeopardizes the sexual and reproductive health of young women.
These procedures are prevalent primarily in Muslim countries, but have increasingly appeared in the West among immigrant communities as well in recent decades. A recent government report alleges that Sweden does not seem to have a widespread problem in this regard, but admits that the issue could be “significantly” underreported, and that many women are flown abroad to undergo virginity tests or hymen restoration procedures.
The Swedish government is particularly concerned about the links between virginity tests and the rise in so-called honor crimes, which tend to have a collective aspect, where the sexuality of a woman is perceived as a matter concerning the whole family, Equality Minister Nina Larsson explained at a press conference.
In most cases, this refers to the family of the husband collectively taking revenge on a bride or wife for real or perceived sexual sins, such as infidelity or being sexually active before the marriage, thus ‘restoring’ their honor.
One of the most recent cases that shocked Sweden was an “honor killing” of a 27-year-old woman in Eskilstuna, near Stockholm, carried out by a presumably jealous husband and six of his family members in their home, allegedly because the woman had been trying to divorce for years.
The husband and two others have been charged with premeditated murder, including the husband’s brother and mother, with the latter playing a central role in instigating the crime, prosecutors said. According to evidence seen by the court, the mother attempted to hire someone to kill her daughter-in-law two weeks before the incident.
The husband’s sister and brother-in-law have been charged with aiding and abetting the murder, while two other women close to the family have been charged with aggravated protection of the criminal after helping the husband escape from Sweden and tampering with evidence. The husband and his mother were arrested in Greece, three weeks after the murder.
“All in all, I believe that at least part of the motive for the act has been to restore the family’s honor,” prosecutor Tobias Lindblom said in court. Despite the conclusive material and digital evidence, all seven suspects deny the charges.
