An independent Egyptian daily says the state’s top women’s advocacy group has filed a complaint with the chief prosecutor against a lawmaker who called for mandatory virginity tests for women seeking university admission.
Maya Morsi, head of the National Council for Women, is quoted Sunday by Al-Masry Al-Youm as saying she will demand the expulsion from parliament of Ilhami Agena and a criminal investigation into his actions. She says the lawmaker is harming the reputation of Egypt and its women.
The lawmaker said in an interview last week that virginity tests were needed to combat the proliferation of informal marriages, known as “gawaz orfy,” between students. Virtually expense free, such marriages have become more popular in recent years because of high unemployment among youth and a shortage of affordable housing.
In Egypt, as in other conservative, Muslim countries, a young woman’s virginity is widely seen as a matter of family honour, the loss of which could prevent her from getting married.
The military was alleged to have conducted virginity tests on 19 women arrested after troops violently broke up a protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in March 2011, shortly after longtime President Hosni Mubarak resigned in the face of a popular uprising.
Three months later, Amnesty International said that Egypt’s then-military rulers acknowledged carrying out the tests as a way to protect the army from possible rape allegations. The military pledged not to conduct the tests again, according to the London-based rights group.
Agena’s comments about women have sparked controversy in the past, including claims that some female lawmakers were not dressing modestly enough.
