Virginity Testing and the Politics of Sexual Responsibility: Implications for AIDS Intervention

In early August 2000 a small but vociferous crowd of teenage girls marched through the streets of central Pietermaritzburg, singing, chanting slogans and holding hand-written placards that stated “We are not being forced!” and “Down with the Gender Commission!” The girls were followed by a handful of middle-aged women, dressed in elaborately beaded outŽ ts and conical hats typically worn by “traditionalist ” Zulu women. These were the abahloli — women who conduct virginity inspections on young girls — and together, they were marching to protest against the Commission on Gender Equality (CGE) and the Human Rights Commission (HRC), who have condemned their activities. This incident — by no means an isolated one — re ects just how contentious the issue of virginity testing [ukuhlolwa kwezintombi] has become in recent years. Ostensibly an effort to promote female sexual chastity as an AIDS prevention strategy, the practice has drawn sharp criticism from observers almost from the beginning of its “revival” in parts of South Africa during the early 1990s. Communities have been divided on the question of whether — as originally claimed — it will offer a viable route to the “regeneration” of Zulu cultural pride in a post-apartheid South Africa. Critics of the practice have raised further questions about the volition of the girls participating in these ceremonies. Many have argued that the testing amounts to a violation of the right to privacy and control over one’s body. And, since virginity testing is invariably paraded as a “local” solution to the AIDS crisis, and indeed draws its justiŽ cation from the tragic surge in infection rates among young people in recent years, its effectiveness in this respect has also been questioned (see, for example, Hamilton 1998, Maharaj 1999 and Leclerc-Madlala 2000). Such debates have broader implications, for they have focused attention — once more — on the difŽ culties that arise when applying universal conceptions of human rights to local contexts. But what makes it difŽ cult to address these arguments is the fact that public opinion on the legitimacy of the practice has split into neatly opposed positions to such an extent that the prospects for Ž nding common ground between them appear to be slim indeed. And, whether presented as an exotic ancient tradition, rescued from the jaws of modernity or as an example of Africa’s tendency to spawn bizarre cultural practices, media images of virginity