Virginity tests classified as acts of torture: the memorable decision by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights

Translated by Mariateresa Tauro

After more than a decade of legal battles, institutional resistance and political silence, a historic decision has been reached. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights has classified the Egyptian state's use of the so-called virginity tests as torture and sexual assault. The proceedings were brought against two women arrested during the 2011 protests. The Commission also called on Egypt to compensate the victims and to put a definitive end to this practice.

The events took place in the period immediately following the fall of Hosni Mubarak, when power passed to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. That period was characterised by increasing militarisation of power and systematic repression of dissent, with arbitrary and systematic arrests, as well as extensive use of military courts against civilians.

It was in this context that Samira Ibrahim and Rasha Abdel Rahman were arrested by the military during a peaceful demonstration. After their arrest, they were first led to the Egyptian Museum, which had been temporarily converted into a military base, and then transferred to a military prison. That’s where they were subjected to beatings, insults, threats and physical violence, aggravated by the use of electric tasers. They were forced to undress in front of male officers; they were then mocked and photographed. Once deprived of their clothes, they were also subjected to forced genital examinations, performed with bare hands, without their consent, presumably to ascertain their virginity.

The then Major General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi attempted to officially justify these abuses as a preventive measure to “protect the army” from future rape allegations, without denying that the events had taken place. In fact, this narrative aimed at shifting responsibility from those who had carried out the tests to the victims of violence. In this way, an act of torture was transformed into a supposed precautionary measure, helping to legitimise it.

The domestic legal process soon proved ineffective. In March 2012, a military court acquitted Ahmed Adel, the doctor accused of physically carrying out the forced genital examinations. Human Rights Watch called the trial a “sham”, pointing out that the court had ignored the victims’ testimonies and failed to investigate the chain of command.

Having exhausted all domestic remedies, the two women, with the support of several international organisations, brought the case before the African Commission. The process was lengthy and complex, slowed down by political and procedural obstacles. The judgment was only published in November 2025, thirteen years after the events (it was adopted in 2023).

In its decision, the Commission found that Egypt had violated a total of eight articles of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, on which its jurisdiction is based. The eight violated articles include the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the principle of non-discrimination, the right to equality before the law, and guarantees of the independence and impartiality of the courts. The violation of the right to a fair trial and of the freedoms of expression and assembly was also recognised, as the violence suffered by the victims was closely linked to their participation in the demonstrations. The Commission stated that so-called virginity tests have no legal or medical justification and constitute a form of torture and gender-based violence, inflicting intentional physical and psychological suffering comparable, according to international standards, to acts of rape.

The Egyptian state was ordered to pay financial compensation to the victims, reopen investigations before civil courts, reform the military code of criminal procedure to protect the physical integrity and privacy of detainees, and definitively eliminate the practice.

When violence is institutionalised, it tends to become invisible, normalised, and justified. When that violence is gender-based, the blindness is absolute: women's bodies are too often treated as a legitimate space for political control. Although the actual implementation of the decision remains uncertain, the judgment breaks years of official denial and gives victims a form of public recognition in a society that has long blamed them.

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