Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo should order Indonesia’s police chief and armed forces commander to immediately ban so-called “virginity tests” of female applicants, says Human Rights Watch.

By ending the practice, the Indonesian government would be abiding by its international human rights obligations and honouring the goals of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Saturday – November 25.

Senior military and police officers with knowledge of the “virginity testing” policy told Human Rights Watch that the security forces continue to impose these cruel and discriminatory “tests,” which are officially classified as “psychological” examinations, for “mental health and morality reasons.”

“The Indonesian government’s continuing tolerance for abusive ‘virginity tests’ by the security forces reflects an appalling lack of political will to protect the rights of Indonesian women,” said Nisha Varia, women’s rights advocacy director.

“These tests are degrading and discriminatory, and they harm women’s equal access to important job opportunities.”

Virginity testing is a form of gender-based violence and is a widely discredited practice.

In November 2014, the World Health Organisation issued guidelines that stated, “There is no place for virginity (or ‘two-finger’) testing; it has no scientific validity.”

Testing exposed
Human Rights Watch first exposed the use of “virginity tests” by Indonesian security forces in 2014, but since then the government has failed to take the necessary steps to prohibit the practice.

An Indonesian military doctor told Human Rights Watch that senior military personnel were well-aware of the arguments against “virginity tests,” but were unwilling to abolish them.

The doctor suggested that stopping the tests required the direct and explicit intervention of Indonesian Armed Forces commander General Gatot Nurmantyo to order an end to the practice.

“The military is a top-down organisation. We have to follow orders.”

Jokowi should declare an immediate prohibition of “virginity tests” by the military and police and create an independent monitoring mechanism to ensure that security forces comply.

The testing includes the invasive “two-finger test” to determine whether female applicants’ hymens are intact, findings that are scientifically baseless.

While Human Rights Watch found that applicants who were deemed to have “failed” were not necessarily penalised, all of the women with whom we spoke with described the test as painful, embarrassing, and traumatic.

‘Two-finger test’
Several Indonesian military and police officers told Human Rights Watch that both security forces have also sought to justify the “two-finger test” as means of determining if applicants are pregnant.

The “two-finger test” cannot determine pregnancy status, and employment discrimination based on pregnancy status is in any event a form of sex discrimination prohibited by Indonesia’s international legal obligations.

All branches of the Indonesian military – air force, army, and navy – have used “virginity tests” for decades and, in certain circumstances, also extended the requirement to the fiancées of military officers.

In May 2015, then-commander of Indonesia’s armed forces, General Moeldoko, responded to criticism of “virginity tests,” by saying to the media, “So what’s the problem? It’s a good thing, so why criticise it?”

Indonesian military spokesman Fuad Basya that same month asserted that “virginity tests” are a means of screening out inappropriate female recruits.

“If they are no longer virgins, if they are naughty, it means their mentality is not good,” Basya told The Guardian.

Current Indonesian Armed Forces chief Nurmantyo has taken no steps to ban the practice.

Abuses documented
Human Rights Watch has documented the use of abusive “virginity tests” by security forces in Egypt, India, and Afghanistan as well as in Indonesia and criticised calls for “virginity tests” for school girls in Indonesia.

“Virginity tests” have been recognised internationally as a violation of human rights, particularly the prohibition against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” under article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and article 16 of the Convention against Torture, both of which Indonesia has ratified.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the international expert body that monitors compliance with the ICCPR, states in a General Comment that the aim of article 7 is “to protect both the dignity and the physical and mental integrity of the individual.”

Coerced virginity testing compromises the dignity of women and violates their physical and mental integrity.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and other human rights treaties prohibit discrimination against women.

Because men are not subjected to virginity testing, the practice constitutes discrimination against women as it has the effect or purpose of denying women on a basis of equality with men the ability to work as police officers.

“Indonesian women who seek to serve their country by joining the security forces shouldn’t have to subject themselves to an abusive and discriminatory ‘virginity test’ to do so,” Varia said.

“The Indonesian police and military cannot effectively protect all Indonesians, women and men, so long as a mindset of discrimination permeates their ranks.”

A Human Rights Watch special report.

Critics have rebuked the Indonesian Military, or TNI,  for meddling in politics, as it celebrated its 72nd anniversary last week, reports the Jakarta Globe.

The critics of the institution say there are signs it is trying to reestablish its political power — curbed since the fall of the military dictator President Suharto in 1998, including by regaining its old dwifungsi, or dual-function, role under current commander General Gatot Nurmantyo.

The TNI’s dwifungsi role, maintained for 32 years under military strongman Suharto, was scrapped soon after his downfall. Dwifungsi had allowed soldiers to be involved in business and politics, earning them enormous advantage and helping them stay in power.

Concerns that civil supremacy is slipping in Indonesia have been rising since Gatot took the reins of the TNI in July 2015. The general makes frequent public appearances, seems to court media attention and in recent months has been putting forth ultra-nationalistic remarks that created controversies.

Activists from Jakarta-based Kontras, a non-governmental organisation that has been helping victims of military violence, said in a note on civil-military relations entitled “A Gift for the Military’s 72nd Anniversary,” that Gatot had been making “obvious political maneouvres.”

“The commander of the military will always get drawn into politics,” Gatot told reporters in Banten, during preparations for TNI’s anniversary celebrations which were held last Thursday.

“But it’s state politics, not practical politics. The military remains neutral in practical politics,” Gatot, who is due to retire in March next year, said.

Gatot under fire
Gatot came under fire for his claim last month that an “institution outside the TNI” had illegally imported 5000 military-standard weapons. The claim had pit the TNI squarely against the police and forced Chief Security Minister Wiranto — himself a former TNI commander — to clarify matters.

Last month Gatot also ordered soldiers to hold screenings of a Suharto-era propaganda film depicting the killings of six army generals on the fateful night of September 30, 1965.

The murders were part of a failed coup attempt that was blamed on the now-banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and led to an anti-communist pogrom that historians say killed up to 3 million people.

Large crowds, including children, were herded to watch the often violent film, which failed to mention the military-backed retaliation against the communists that followed.

Gatot’s claim of the illegal weapon import and his order to screen the propaganda film were mentioned in a list published in Kontras’s note on Wednesday along with other incidents that also involved the TNI commander since May last year.

The list, Kontras argued, “showed the military still retains its ambition to bring back dwifungsi”.

“We should keep in mind that almost all members of the current military elite were raised under the climate of dual function,” Kontras activist Puri Kencana Putri said.

“They were trained to be a force that won’t just stay put in the barracks.”

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The Indonesian Military (TNI) has begun mobilising its forces — including warships and intelligence operations — in northern parts of Indonesia to anticipate the entrance of the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) into the country amid a continuing siege in the neighboring Philippines by IS-linked militants.

“We are the first to mobilise our warships on patrol from North Maluku to Central Sulawesi. We have also mobilised some warships in Tarakan, North Kalimantan and are cooperating with the Philippine and Malaysian militaries,” said TNI chief General Gatot Nurmantyo at the weekend, as quoted by tempo.co.

A deadly battle between the Philippines army and the Maute terrorist group has been ongoing since last month in the southern Philippine town of Marawi City, on Mindanao Island, raising concerns among Philippines neighbours, including Indonesia and Malaysia.

Apart from warships, General Gatot added, the TNI had also been conducting intelligence operations in several territories near Mindanao, including Morotai Island in North Maluku, as well as other outer islands of Indonesia, reports the Jakarta Post.

“Soldiers from Tarakan [in North Kalimantan] will monitor beaches and illegal ports,” he said. “Of course, we are also cooperating with the police and the locals.”

Recently, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia revealed a plan to launch joint air, naval and ground patrols in the Sulu Sea and areas nearby Mindanao this month.