Minister of health denies he authorized virginity tests

Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey — Following criticism from women’s and human rights organizations and his own political party, Turkey’s health minister denied Thursday that he authorized virginity tests for high school nursing students suspected of having sex.

Health Minister Osman Durmus said earlier this month that high school girls studying at government-run nursing high schools would be expelled if they had sex and would be barred from studying at other government institutions.

Turkish newspapers reported that Durmus was authorizing virginity tests for girls suspected of having sex, an order that nurses’ associations and women’s groups vowed to fight.

In a written statement Thursday, Durmus said the regulation did not call for gynecological examinations of girls suspected of having sex. But he would not disclose how school authorities would determine whether girls had sex or not.

"Virginity tests for girls studying at our schools, or a return to such a practice, or any flexibility that would allow such a practice are out of the question," Durmus said in his statement.

In a tense meeting after Durmus’ proposed regulation was first made public, he ridiculed nurses who protested it, saying that they were supporting underage sex. The leader of Durmus’ far-right Nationalist Action Party reportedly criticized Durmus after that meeting, saying he was tarnishing the party’s image and ordered him to leave the capital on vacation.

Virginity is highly valued in mainly Muslim Turkey. The controversy, which is also being debated in the country’s newspapers, reflects deep divisions between the large part of Turkey that is deeply religious and the Western-oriented elite who regard themselves as European.

Forced virginity tests on girls suspected of having had premarital sex were common until the practice was banned in 1999 after five girls took rat poison rather than submit to the tests.