Women are being forced to undergo virginity tests when seeking education jobs in Brazil’s most populous state.
Prospective education employees in the state of Sao Paulo are required to undergo a pap smear to prove they free of cancers or to present a doctor’s certificate verifying they are not sexually active.
Women’s rights campaign groups have denounced the practice as a gross violation of women’s privacy and their human dignity.
Until recently the education department also required women to have a colposcopy – a type of gynecological examination used to detect disease.
Employers in the city of Sao Paulo, pictured, force public sector workers to undergo invasive health checks
The department since at least 2012 has required the exams to show that candidates for long-term teaching positions are in good health and would not take extended or frequent absences to attend to health matters.
Critics, however, decried it as an invasion of privacy.
Ana Paula de Oliveria Castro, a public defender of women’s issues in Sao Paulo, said: ‘It violates women’s rights. It’s very intimate information that she has the right to keep. It’s absurd to continue with these demands.’
Brazil’s national Special Secretariat for Women’s Rights said it was against any requirements that compromise the privacy of women.
‘The woman has the right to choose whether to take an exam that will not affect her professional life,’ said the statement.
Such policies violate constitutional protections of human dignity and the principle of equality and right to private life, it said.
The public management department for Sao Paulo said that all tests ordered follow the standards and recommendation of the country’s Health Ministry for public servants as well as state law.
It also said that other states and federal agencies have similar requirements.
The Brazilian state of Bahia caused outrage last year when female police candidates were forced to do tests to prove their hymens were not torn
‘The health inspections are intended to ensure, beyond technical ability, the physical and mental ability of candidates to keep their jobs for an average of 25 years.’
While the department requires other health exams, such as a mammography for women and a prostate test for men older than 40, the gynecological exams were criticized as particularly invasive.
The issue came to light this week after a news site interviewed a 27-year-old woman who said she was ashamed to ask a doctor for a note declaring she was still a virgin to escape the other tests.
The bar association of Sao Paulo said the practice was unconstitutional. The group Catholics for the Right to Choose also complained about it, saying in a statement ‘We are living in the Middle Ages!’
Last year, a similar incident sparked anger in the state of Bahia, in northeastern Brazil, when female candidates for police jobs were asked to take the tests or prove their hymens were not torn.
The government subsequently asked that such tests be eliminated.
