Screenings at the Frontline Club: Britain’s ‘Virginity’ Clinics Uncovered

When : March 7, 2022

Time: 19:00 – 20:30 (GMT+0)

Where : Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place , W2 1QJ

Book HERE  ( tickets £15 each)

The Bafta-winning ITV Exposure strand examines the lucrative trade capitalising upon myths surrounding women’s virginity and goes undercover to investigate the clinics making money from so-called virginity testing and repair procedures that campaigners condemn as a violation of human rights.

Reporter Sahar Zand explores how in the name of ‘honour,’ women across the UK are being forced to prove their virginity and for those that fail, they fear that the consequences could be deadly.

One woman, known in the programme as Naz, describes what happened when she ‘failed’ the virginity test done by a clinic in London: “[At] the front of the clinic, my dad, he had a smile on – a fake smile on his face – and he said, ‘Don’t worry.’ So when I got home, my dad started hitting me so badly, I couldn’t even get out of bed for a week. I feel like I have no control over my life.”

With the government likely to bring in a ban against the practice of so-called virginity testing in England and Wales, the investigation questions whether any change in the law should be extended to other parts of the industry, notably hymen repair surgery. It hears from human rights campaigners who say the two practices are interconnected and that keeping one will allow the other to continue unmonitored.