A court in Egypt has forbidden the Army from carrying out so-called virginity tests on female detainees. The verdict was delivered in the case of Samira Ibrahim, a 25-year-old marketing manager and activist brave enough to defy the country’s Army.
In March of this year, military forces violently broke up a sit-in of protesters who had continued to camp out in Tahrir Square after Mubarak’s ouster. Women as well as men were arrested. According to testimony they gave to international human-rights groups, the women were insulted, accused of prostitution, beaten, and tortured. At a military camp to which they were transported, seven of the women—those who were unmarried—were subjected to “virginity tests,” stripped and inspected by a male military doctor while soldiers and officers looked on.
One person makes a difference: There were numerous reports of said “tests” being carried out by the Egyptian army, but Samira Ibrahim was the only woman to come forward publicly and file a lawsuit. “On that day, I truly wished for death,” she said in a video testimony. “I kept telling myself, people get heart attacks and die, why don’t I get one?” Problem is, Egyptian courts don’t have jurisdiction over military personnel, so while policy will change to reflect the ruling, it’ll be up to the military itself to press charges against any of its officers. So far, it has announced that it will charge one army doctor with “public indecency and violation of orders.”