Women seeking to join the Indonesian military are required to strip naked and have their genitalia manually examined by a doctor, purportedly to ensure that they are virgins.

Following protests by Human Rights Watch, Indonesia’s top military commander, General Moeldoko, defended the “virginity test”. He conceded that there was no direct link between a woman being a virgin and her abilities as a member of the armed forces, but insisted that virginity was a “gauge of a woman’s morality” – one of the three key traits he said a woman must have to serve in the Indonesian Armed Forces, along with high academic aptitude and physical strength. “There is no other way to determine a person’s morality”, Moeldoko said. (Report from NPR, May 18, 2015)

Scientists are perfecting a new procedure that establishes whether men have had sexual intercourse during the previous five years, using protoluminosity technology. The tests indicate partner numbers. Initial tests, conducted on behalf of the Indonesian military authorities, indicated that 87.4% of all male applicants to join the armed forces were, as a result, deemed to be morally unsuitable. The military has now declared the test procedure “unreliable”. Men all over the world also want the tests scrapped.

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