In
Tunisia, young women are expected to be virgins when they marry, leading to a
growing trade in hymen reconstruction surgery.
Yasmine (not her real name) looks
nervous. She’s biting her nails and checks her mobile phone constantly.
“I consider this to be deception and
I’m really worried,” she says.
We’re on the fourth floor of a
private clinic in Tunis – the gynaecology service. Around us in the pink
waiting room, other women wait patiently to be seen.
Yasmine confides in me that she is
having a hymenoplasty, a short procedure that promises to reconstruct her
virginity surgically.
We claim to live in a modern society…
but there’s not much modernity when it comes to women’s sexuality and freedom
Samia Elloumi, Sociologist
Her wedding is due to take place in
two months’ time and the 28-year-old is worried that her husband will find out
she is not a virgin.
She has come here to turn back the
clock but is concerned that at some point in the future the truth may come out.
“I might one day inadvertently betray
myself in a conversation with my husband,” she says. “Or my husband may have…
suspicions.”
Pressure
There have been some reports of young
women here being divorced shortly after marrying because their husbands
suspected they were not virgins.
Yasmine was born into a liberal
family and spent many years living abroad. She fears her fiancé will cancel
their wedding if he knows the truth about her sexual history.
“I had an affair once with a man,”
she says. “At that time, I couldn’t imagine how huge the pressure was in my
society and what the consequences could be.
“So now I am afraid. If I reveal this
to my fiancé, I’m quite sure our wedding will be cancelled.”
Yasmine will now have to pay almost
$400 (£310) for the procedure, which will take about 30 minutes. She has been
saving up the money for several months, keeping it secret from her family and
her fiancé.
The doctor who will carry out the
procedure for Yasmine is a gynaecologist, whom we will call Rachid. He does two
hymenoplasties a week, on average.
Rachid says 99% of his patients are
motivated by the fear that they might otherwise bring shame to their family and
relatives.
Many, like Yasmine, are seeking to
disguise the fact that they are not virgins.
But hymens can tear for other reasons
too, such as tampon use, leaving women worried that they may be accused,
falsely, of having had sex before marriage.
“Gynaecologists do hymen repair. This
is nothing exceptional,” Rachid says. “But here some doctors refuse to do it. I
personally do it because I disagree with those who make virginity a sort of
sacred thing.
“It really annoys me. This is a
manifestation of a male-dominated society covered up in some religious
principles. I mean it when I say it’s male dominance and I’ll continue to wage an
all-out war against it.”
‘Hypocritical’
Tunisia is regarded as a leader in
women’s rights in North Africa but religion and tradition here dictate that
young women have to remain virgins until they are married.
There is also provision in Tunisian
law for divorce in cases where women are discovered not to be virgins.
Sociologist
Samia Elloumi says: “In this Tunisian society, which is an open society, we are
becoming hypocritical.
“There is a sort of predominant
social conservatism which is hard to justify because we claim to live in a
modern society. But there’s not much modernity when it comes to women’s
sexuality and freedom.”
At a public university, I meet
Hichem. The 29-year-old student is getting married next year. I ask him if he
cares whether his fiancée is a virgin.
“For me it’s very, very important,”
he says.
“If I find out that she’s not a
virgin after the wedding, I’ll never trust her again. I’ll consider it a
betrayal. And I don’t believe in hymenoplasty operations. I don’t think it
works.”
Sitting next to him is Radhouam,
another student. He says that Tunisian tradition is too harsh on women.
“For me, this is pure hypocrisy,” he
says. “Young men can freely have sex before marriage, so why do we blame young
girls when they do so?”
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