126 GENDER PERSPECTIVES ON TORTURE: Law and Practice washes its hands of any role it may have had in creating the circumstances that lead to their situ­ ations. It also denies that girls have a right to engage in consensual sexual conduct and to choose to become pregnant. The issue of mandatory or coerced pregnancy testing and punishment on the basis of pregnancy status is not a new one. In Sierra Leone, for example, the practice of excluding girls for pregnancy is a longstanding human rights concern. In 2002, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission deemed the practice “discriminatory and archaic.”10 Over a decade later, in March 2015, as children returned to school after the Ebola outbreak, the Minister for Education, Science and Technology, Mr. Bah, proclaimed an official ban on “visibly pregnant” girls from schools and exams. Further, Mr. Kaikai, the Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, was quoted as saying that it would be unacceptable to have pregnant girls sitting alongside “normal” girls at school and that pregnant girls must face “consequences for their actions,” in this case being excluded from mainstream schools and prohibited from sitting exams.11 In Colombia, when a pregnant student was instructed to attend separate classes on her own, isolated from her classmates, the school staff claimed that this was because her health was weak and her delicate condition precluded her from following the same programme as her friends. They chose to ignore a doctor’s testimony that pregnancy is not an illness and that there was no medical reason why the student should not follow the same schedule as her peers, and study alongside them, if she wished to do so.12 In South Africa, according to a UThukela District Municipality spokesman, girls applying for a bursary ought to have their virginity tested regularly because “[t]hey must keep pure and protect themselves from diseases like AIDS.”13 When virginity testing was proposed at a police academy in Indonesia, the reason given was to “maintain the honour of the service” and “combat prostitution.”14 These practices humiliate girls for their real or perceived sexual conduct, have a lasting impact on their wellbeing, and can drastically affect their life chances.15 Girls face fraught and coercive circumstances. Refusing to take a pregnancy or virginity test can leave them vulnerable to accu­ sations, rumours and disapproval. It may out her as a victim of sexual violence. Further, a girl’s refusal also may close the door on her chances to gain entry to college or obtain a bursary. It is an obvious fact, but worth emphasizing nonetheless, that since these discriminatory policies are based on gender, boys do not have to endure, or live in fear of being subjected to, these specific tests, accusations, or subsequent punishments and other social consequences. Tests and punishment for pregnancy, or “virginity tests” are neither legitimate nor effective means to reduce early pregnan­ cies, if that is the purported intent. 10 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Witness to Truth: Report of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2004 (Report of the Sierra Leone TRC), at para 360, available at: http://www.sierraleonetrc.org/ index.php/view-report-text-vol-2/item/volume-two-chapter-three. 11 Amnesty International, Shamed and Blamed: Pregnant girls’ rights at risk in Sierra Leone, at page 17. 12 Sentencia T-348/07, Corte Constitucional de la Republica de Colombia, available at http://www. corteconstitucional.gov.co/relatoria/2007/T-348-07.htm. 13 News24, Girls be warned: Lose your virginity, you lose your bursary, 22 January 2016, available at http:// www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/municipality-warns-maidens-lose-your-virginity-lose-your­ bursary-20160122. 14 Human Rights Watch, Indonesia: Military Imposing ‘Virginity Tests’, 13 May 2015 and https://www.hrw.org/ news/2014/11/17/indonesia-virginity-tests-female-police. 15 Special Rapporteur to the Human Rights Council, Gender perspectives on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, (A/HRC/31/57) at para. 46.