Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling on Indonesia to stop virginity tests for women who want to join the military, calling the practice “cruel, inhuman and degrading.”
The rights group said interviews with female members of the military showed that the examination, normally conducted through a "two-finger test" to ensure the hymen is intact, was required of women joining the armed forces or planning to marry military officers.
The armed forces defended checking female applicants' virginity, saying that people of low morals could "damage the military," but denied that those planning to marry officers were also subject to the checks.
HRW slammed Indonesia’s national police last year for forcing female applicants to undergo the examinations.
In a statement, HRW said the military "should immediately end the use of so-called virginity tests, which violate the prohibition of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under international human rights law."
The group described the practice as gender-based violence and said it was "scientifically baseless" as a method of proving that a woman was a virgin.
HRW interviewed 11 recruits and officers' fiancées who had undergone the tests at military hospitals in several cities on the main island of Java.
Read more:
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/5/15/indonesia-urged-to-end.html 
