Outrage as Egypt village celebrates girl's chastity after man marries and divorces her on the same night, claiming she’s not a virgin

A man in Egypt divorced his wife on their wedding night claiming that she was not a virgin, prompting her father to ask her to undergo a virginity test.

The virginity test, which her father said was to “silence anyone who doubts his daughter’s honour,” confirmed that his daughter’s hymen was still intact.

A video was then circulated online of the daughter on her father’s shoulders, waving a white cloth, with a man shouting into the microphone, “the honourable chaste one is back.”

Often described as a bride’s wedding night humiliation, on their wedding night women in some cultures are expected to go through the humiliating ritual of bleeding onto a white sheet to prove they are virgins.

Social media users lamented both the divorce, the public display of “chastity” and the fact that the bride was a minor.

واحد طلق مراته تاني يوم جوازه منها وانتشرت الاشاعات انها بنت مش شريفة
البنت الغلبانة وابوها راحوا الطب الشرعي وعملوا كشف عذرية وشالها وطاف الشوارع لإثبات عذريتها بورق الحكومة
ده اختصار بسيط للواقع العفن اللى عايشينه
بهدلة الستات والبنات علشان يثبتوا للمجتمع انهن شريفات pic.twitter.com/47PqWi78st

— Pêřy ✏📖📿💚 (@Green00_Dream) November 20, 2022

This is the rotten reality that we live in, humiliating women and girls to prove to society that they are honourable.

READ: UN probes claims Egypt police spying on COP27 participants

One Egyptian lawyer has filed a report to the Public Prosecutor because the bride is reported to have been only 15 years old at the time of the marriage.

مش قادرة استوعب اننا مع كل اللى بيحصل فى دول عربية جنبنا موسم رياض واهم حدث عالمى كأس العالم عندنا هنا فى أم الدنيا التريند انهاردة عن فتاة الشرقية حاجة تغم والله عايشين وسط بكابورت

— مسمهاش چاسمين اسمها ياسمينا (@Messywomen_) November 21, 2022

I can’t comprehend everything that is happening in Arab countries. Next to us is the most important global sporting event, the World Cup, and we have here in the mother of the world [Egypt] a trend about the chaste girl, something that makes you sad.

The video circulated online as women’s rights in Egypt is under the spotlight as a series of violent crimes against women has drawn attention to a lack of legal and social protection that has left women vulnerable to attacks, harassment and sexual violence.

The most prominent case was that of 21-year-old student Naira Ashraf, who was stabbed 19 times outside Mansoura University in the summer.

Following her death it emerged that Naira had filed two restraining orders against her killer, a man whose marriage proposal she turned down, yet action was not taken against him.

Naira’s autopsy report focused on the results of her virginity test and whether or not her hymen was intact.