Health Minister Denies Ordering Virginity Tests

After criticism from women’s and human rights organizations, Turkish Health Minister Osman Durmus denied that he authorized virginity tests for high school nursing students suspected of having sex.

Durmus said this month that high school girls studying at government-run nursing schools would be expelled if they had sex and barred from studying at other government institutions.

Newspapers reported that he was authorizing virginity tests, an order that nurses’ and women’s groups vowed to fight.

Durmus said the regulation did not call for physical exams. He would not say how school authorities would determine whether girls had sex.