France to Criminalize Doctors Issuing Virginity Certificates for Religious Marriages

"Some doctors still dare to certify that a woman is a virgin to allow a religious marriage, despite the condemnation of these practices by the Order of Physicians. We will not only formally prohibit it but propose the penalization," the minister said in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien. His wish is to penalize doctors who issue these certificates to young women.

"I think it would be better to punish the parents who demand it than the doctor who tries to help his patient. I think we’re taking the problem backwards," gynecologist Ghada Hatem told LCI. For her, this draft law "makes no sense". She says she receives about two people per month in her office but sometimes issues the certificate of virginity to patients whose life is in danger.

"Yes, I sometimes provide a certificate to a young woman I don’t even examine. If she needs a paper saying she’s a virgin to save her life, so they stop bothering her, I do it. I explain to her that I’m sorry, that I regret that she has to go through this," she confides. According to her, it’s all much more subtle than what the government wants to make us believe. "I think we need to listen to women, encourage them to speak up, do education, and sometimes try to protect them," the specialist suggests.

"Most of the time, we don’t issue a certificate, but when we do, it’s because we think there’s a danger of death for this girl. Because otherwise, she’ll be taken to the village, she’ll see a village gynecologist, and if she’s not a virgin, it’s going to get hot for her," the gynecologist continues. She calls on the government to leave the doctors alone, let them do their job and judge what they think is best for their patients. "I don’t understand why they want to legislate on this, as if it were France’s number one problem, secularism and integration," she indignantly says.