By: Syeda Hadia Rubab Naqvi
The societies where a woman walks into a police station to report assault and the credibility of her “accusation” is measured by the two figures are destined to die down. Two figure test is a test that includes a humiliating procedure of inserting two figures into the genitals of the victim. The idea behind this is to check whether the hymen is intact. A hymen is a soft tissue or a membrane that covers the external opening of the female genital in case the hymen is not intact the woman is denied justice. In 1979 for the very first time the two-figure test came into being. It was done on some Indian woman who was traveling to see her fiancé in Britain. The woman was held by the authorities at the airport and the test was done to see whether she was already married or did she make up a story to get the visa. In Pakistan, only the Lahore court has declared the two-figure test illegal and against the constitution. Around the world, this practice is considered derogatory and inhuman thus banned in most of the developing states of the world.
Another inhumane practice that women still go through is the husband stitch. Husband stitch is a surgical procedure to sew back a women’s perineum after a child’s birth. It is neither medically approved nor comes into the realms of humanity. It is just a painful procedure accompanied by excruciating pain and throbbing ache. The husband stitch practice originated in the 1950s when doctors added an extra stitch to the female’s genital to increase the men’s pleasure and to bring it back to the pre-delivery state. After a certain time, it was reported that this stitch was put into the woman without any consent. The term HUSBAND STITCH in itself represents the misogyny that is inherited in medical care.
Female Genital mutilation is another practice that has been around for thousands of years. According to the world health organization, there have been 4 types of FGM. It includes removal or clitoris, partial removal of clitoris and labia minora, removal or labia Minor and Majora plus clitoris, all processes are included respectively. 200 million girls have experienced this painful procedure and 3 million girls every year go through this process. The age group of the girls that face this brutality is from birth until 15. FGM leaves the women with short-term and long-term trauma and uncountable physical health issues. FGM is reported to be practiced in more than 30 countries including Africa, Asia, the Middle-East, Latin America, and some parts of the USA and Europe.
Bloody sheets tradition is still in practice. The tradition goes something like this. The new bride enters the room and a white sheet is spread on the bed where the newlyweds engage in sexual acts and then that sheet is brought out to the awaiting audience and if the sheets are bloody then there is festivity in the air but if the sheet is stainless then the woman has brought shame to the family and thus immediately disowned by the family and the relatives. This is a tradition that is still in fashion in smaller regions of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Argentina
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