Virginity Tests On Rape Victims Banned By Pakistan Court .

Women in Lahore in Pakistan holding placard against rape .

 A court in Pakistan's most populous province in Punjab  has outlawed virginity tests on rape victims, a longstanding practice in the country used to assess a woman's so-called honour.

Critics of the tests, including an invasive "two-finger test", had filed petitions in the eastern city of Lahore in a bid to have them outlawed.

What Is Two Finger Test ?

A doctor performs the test by inserting a finger into the female's vagina to check the level of vaginal laxity, which is used to determine if she is "habituated to sexual intercourse"  .However, the usefulness of these criteria has been questioned by medical authorities and opponents of virginity testing because vaginal laxity and the absence of a hymen can both be caused by other factors, and the "two-finger test" is based on subjective observation.

The practice —banned in neighboring country Afghanistan , India and Bangladesh — continues to take place in Pakistan and more than a dozen other countries where it is seen as a measure of virtue and of whether a woman is trustworthy.

If two fingers can be easily inserted into the vagina, supporters of the practice say, it shows that a woman is not a virgin, and thus lacks moral authority to make an assault or rape accusation.

The petitioners — a group of women that includes a sociologist, a journalist, an activist, a lawyer and a psychologist, as well as a member of the lower house of Parliament — argued that examining whether the hymen was intact had no scientific or legal bearing in sexual violence cases, and violated constitutional rights to privacy and  dignity .

Women’s rights activists called it a necessary step toward improving the investigative and judicial process for victims of sexual violence in a country where rape convictions are rare.

Pakistan's president had already moved to ban the two-finger virginity test, an invasive examination which involves a medical examiner inserting two fingers into a woman's vagina, in December as part of a new anti-rape law.