CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.3 ENFORCEMENT OF VIRGINITY PURITY: TESTING AND CEREMONIAL RITES OF PASSAGE
2.3.1 VIRGINITY TESTING AND HIV
In South Africa, virginity testing is also gendered. There is a common belief that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is the result of women being sexually “out of control” (Leclerc‐Madlala 2001: 533).
With the social impact of AIDS starting to take its toll in the forms of increasing AIDS-related
23
deaths, and a growing population of orphans, it has been argued that virginity testing should be upheld in an attempt to manage the epidemic by exerting greater control over women and their sexual behaviour (Leclerc‐Madlala 2001). It should be noted, though, that virginity testing of girls helps to draw attention away from the role of men in the maturing HIV epidemic. The practice of virginity testing has come under heavy criticism. Some researchers argue that virginity testing is used as a means of exerting control over women and their sexuality.
Moreover, it draws attention away from the role of men and their abuse of sexual power and privilege (Leclerc-Madlala 2001).
Many regard virginity testing as the “only way to instil what they view as the lost cultural values of chastity before marriage, modesty, self-respect and pride” (Leclerc-Madlala 2001:
535). As the number of people dying of AIDS has increased, community leaders have shown interest in reviving the cultural tradition of virginity testing as a way to safeguard against HIV/AIDS. Kinoti (2005) argues that virginity testing is used as one method to check the onslaught of the pandemic in order to encourage abstinence, which is one of the strategies for preventing the further spread of the virus. Often those in favour of virginity testing claim that the benefits include not only the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS, but also prevention of teenage pregnancy and the detection of children who are sexually abused, and that it relieves the burden on pensioners who are forced to take care of unplanned babies (Le Roux 2006).
According to a national survey in South Africa among young people aged 15-24 years, the HIV prevalence was estimated to be 8.6% in 2005 (Shisana et al. 2009). The rate of new infection is also higher among young women than young men, and this is associated with various factors such as greater biological susceptibility, gender inequalities, sociocultural norms, lack of financial security, forced and early marriage, sexual abuse and human trafficking of young women (Shisana et al. 2009).
According to Kinoti (2005), in KwaZulu-Natal virginity testing is a practice in which girls aged 7 to 26 are examined to determine whether their hymen (commonly known as ‘eye’) is intact.
Girls who pass the examination receive a white star pasted on their forehead and a certificate confirming their virginity. However, research conducted in Durban shows that a sizeable minority of adolescents become sexually active before the age of fifteen suggesting that there is a need for intervention to target young people before that age (Calvès et al. 1996).
Hunter (1936) argues that virginity testing, which is done in order to ensure that girls are virgins, has much broader significance. Virgins are seen as morally pure and more important
24
because they are able to maintain their virginity up until marriage. Engaging in sexual intercourse before marriage is regarded as unacceptable (Mhlongo 2009).
In January 2016, a row over virginity testing was reignited when the Mayor of uThukela District Municipality in Kwazulu-Natal, Dudu Mazibuko, instituted a Maiden’s Bursary program. Sixteen scholarships for tertiary study were awarded to virgin females. These girls had undergone virginity testing previously. Their scholarships would be renewed as long as they maintained their virginity during their studies and to prove this they would need again to periodically undergo the test (Rafudeen 2016).
The mayor’s intent was practical: she felt that far too many girls ruin their education by falling pregnant and so the award would incentivize them to focus on their studies. There was also the need to curb the high levels of HIV and simply abstaining from sex would certainly appear to promote that goal (Ngcobo 2016).
In South Africa, particularly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, a girl who becomes pregnant before marriage is ostracised by girls who would have passed the test for the reason that she has brought shame and disgrace both upon herself and her peers. Nowadays the dignity and pride that virginity is believed to bestow on the individual girl continues to be linked with the avoidance of premarital motherhood. Sexual abstinence is constructed as an end in itself, quite separate from its role in enabling fertility control and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV transmission (Mhlongo 2009). “Adolescents who have sex are seen as people who have lost the vitality of youth and become old” (Scorgie 2002: 10).
In DRC, in the Luba ethnic group, a group of traditional experts, especially old women, will testify after seeing blood on the sheet after a bride’s honeymoon night. It is a sign of purity in many religions especially Muslim and Judaism. In South Africa, virgins stand in the frontlines of the war against HIV/AIDS and many believe that virginity is one of the country’s (DRC) biggest defence against HIV (Kabuya 2017).
In the current study it has been observed that migrants live in a higher HIV-prevalence region than their counterparts in the DRC.
A study conducted in KwaZulu-Natal by Wand et al. (2011) on the prevalence of HIV revealed that HIV prevalence was 43% among women who reported speaking Zulu or other languages compared to 29% among those who reported speaking English at home. Testing positive for HIV infection was more common among women who were not married (46%) and not living
25
with a sexual partner (46%) compared to those married (14%) and living with a sexual partner (31%). High risk sexual behaviors were also common among those who were HIV-infected at the screening visit compared with those not infected. More than 50% of the women who reported having had sex for the first time at age 14 or younger tested positive for HIV infection.
Sixty percent of women who had at least four or more lifetime sexual partners tested positive for HIV infection compared to those with less than four lifetime sexual partners. Seventy percent of the women who reported having exchanged sex for money tested positive.
Prevalence of HIV infection was also significantly higher among women who tested positive for gonorrhea and Herpes (HSV2). HIV prevalence was significantly higher among women who reported not using any contraception methods (or using only traditional methods) compared to those who reported using at least one of the contraception methods (47% vs 40%).
The Ministère du Plan et Suivi de la Mise en œuvre de la Révolution de la Modernité (MPSMRM) (2014) conducted a study on the prevalence of HIV in the DRC among 9,264 women aged 15-49 and 8,374 men aged 15-59 who were tested for HIV. The results show that 1.2% of people aged 15-49 were infected with HIV, and the differences between provinces was not statistically significant. HIV prevalence among young people aged 15-24 was 0.7%. HIV prevalence was higher among women (1.6%) than men (0.6%). It was lower among those living in rural areas (0.9%) compared to urban areas (1.6%). HIV prevalence was highest among widows (7.9%) and divorced (2.9. The infection rate of women and men increased with age to reach a maximum of 2.9% at 40-44 years for women and 1.2% for men 35-39 and 45-49 years old. In women, HIV prevalence was lowest among those with no education. On the other hand, among men, HIV prevalence was lowest among those who have higher levels of education. In women the prevalence of HIV tended to increase when the level of economic wellbeing increased. The infection rate was highest among young women living in rural areas.
Comparing the above study conducted by Wand (2011) in KwaZulu-Natal and the one done by MPSMRM (2014) in the whole DRC, we can conclude that indeed in the DRC, women live in a lower HIV prevalence region than their counterparts the migrants in South Africa. These studies show that the lowest incidence is among young women aged 15-24 and married women in the DRC which is the opposite of the results in KwaZulu-Natal. Another study conducted by Shisana et al. (2014) in South Africa shows that there is a high incidence of HIV among young women aged 15-24 years.
26