South African Mayor Awards Virginity Test Scholarships

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virginity test

A South African mayor has awarded 16 young women scholarships for college education based on a virginity test.

The mayor hopes this may encourage other young people to be “pure and focus on school.”

The move is intended to encourage other young people to continue with their higher education and remain focused on achieving a college degree or certificate instead of a pregnancy.

Gawker reports:

According to the Associated Press, the mayor of the Uthukela district municipality, Dudu Mazibuko, told a local radio station that the recipients had all agreed to undergo periodic exams to prove their virginity. He went on:

“To us, it’s just to say thank you for keeping yourself and you can still keep yourself for the next three years until you get your degree or certificate.”

The mayor says his intention was to encourage women, who are more often faced with the problems that arise with young pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections and diseases, to continue their educations, rather than becoming pregnant early. But the country’s chairman for the Commission for Gender Equality, Mfanozelwe Shozi, said that they “don’t agree” with the move, adding that the scholarships are “going too far” and contribute to discrimination against young pregnant women.

This isn’t the first time scholarships like this have been attempted (and virginity tests have proven continually problematic in countless countries in the past). In 2009, multiple sources reported that a province in Sierra Leone was offering virginity grants, too.virginity test

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