With their panties scrunched up in their hands, the girls laying in a row on the ground of a township football stadium range from five to 22 years old.

The virginity tester, whose job it is to determine whether the girls are still virgins, uses the same pair of gloves for all 85 girls. Certificates are exchanged, at a cost of R5 each, for all but the three of the girls who “failed” the test.

This is a scene described by University of Natal anthropologist, Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala who points out that regular virginity testing is gaining growing public support as an AIDS prevention strategy in South Africa, especially in KwaZulu’€“Natal.

Unlike condom-use, virginity testing promotes abstinence from sex before marriage. It is promoted by many as a traditional African solution to the African AIDS problem.

But in a country that bears the dubious distinction of having the world’€™s highest statistics for rape, virginity testing is nonsensical as an AIDS prevention technique, says Leclerc-Madlala. It overlooks “half of the heterosexual equation” and places sole responsibility for sexual behaviour on women in a society where women have little control over their own sexuality.

“Virginity testing is consistent with a peculiar but popular way of dealing with problems in South Africa, that is to start out by blaming the victim,” says Leclerc-Madlala.

According to N.J. Xulu, co-ordinator of a virginity testing association called Igugu Iama Africa in Kwa-Zulu Natal, many organisations are starting to test girls from six years of age. “Initially we started from 12 years old but by doing so we found that half of the girls tested had already lost their virginity.”

Andile Gumede from Kwa Mashu has been a virginity tester for 25 years. She tests girls from whatever ages their mother’€™s request, ranging from three to four years and upwards. Gumede believes that virginity testing from an early age not only helps to prevent child abuse but also to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

“By testing them, they will be scared to sleep with men. The boys or men can’€™t sleep with girls who keep saying, ‘€˜no’€™. At the moment, girls sleep with men voluntarily. If the girls say no to sex, then AIDS will be prevented.”

But for Beatrice Ngcobo, Commissioner of Gender Equality in KwaZulu-Natal, virginity testing is nothing less than a form of discrimination and violence against women which runs counter to our national constitution and which the South African government should strongly discourage.

Virginity testing may also increase the risk of HIV infection, says Ngcobo, because it encourages young people to engage in anal sex rather than genital sex.

Anal sex puts people at even greater risk of HIV infection than genital sex.

Far from preventing the spread of HIV, virginity testing exacerbates the spread of the disease because it entrenches gender inequality, adds Leclerc-Madlala.

“Virginity testing re-enforces gender inequality because it reflects the attitude that women don’€™t have ownership or control of their own bodies. It is this attitude that puts people at risk for HIV/AIDS because it makes women powerless to negotiate safer sex and opens the way for sexual violence against women.”

“Lining up girls for genital inspection is a social drama that serves to remind us that power differentials and sexual oppression are, like the hymen, still very intact in South Africa,” concludes Leclerc-Madlala.