ITV expose clinics offering ‘Virginity restoration’

In a programme that airs tonight ITV Exposure investigates pharmacies offering unscientific tests to women to prove their ‘virginity’.

An undercover investigation for ITV Exposure has found pharmacies offering unscientific tests to women to prove their ‘virginity’ and surgeons offering controversial hymen repair surgery.

In London, reporters found five out of nine pharmacies they visited were willing to do the “virginity” test or link to those who did. One undercover reporter visited a Harley Street clinic exploring hymen repair – one of more than 30 clinics offering the service in the UK. When one surgeon was asked what might happen if the practice is outlawed, he says ‘We have to lie. We have to say we are doing something else.’

Among conservative Muslim communities, one of the greatest transgressions of honour is considered to be sex outside marriage – and not following the strict of honour rules can have potentially deadly consequences for women.

In ITV documentary Britain’s ‘Virginity’ Clinics Uncovered, which airs tonight, reporter Sahar Zand hears how, in the name of ‘honour,’ women across the UK are being forced to prove their virginity. One reporter, posing as a woman who was soon to marry, visits nine pharmacies in Edgware Road in London. At the Prince Pharmacy, undercover reporter ‘Neda’ is told they could arrange a test in their backroom.

Understanding that virginity tests are often conducted without a patient’s consent, the programme sends in another undercover reporter, as Neda’s domineering mother. Despite Neda not being present, and though she had clearly not been happy about the test, the pharmacy manager tells her mother: “If she is a virgin, the doctor is going to write the report clearly that she is a virgin.”

She also says: “I’ve seen how she was, as you said very innocent and she was not happy – but she has to do it.”

When the pair return to see what would happen when a doctor is presented with someone appearing pressurised into a virginity test, the clinician, a Dr Obaid, says she can’t write a report that states, “Neda is a virgin,” but that she would be prepared to confirm whether her hymen is intact. She asks for written consent to perform the examination and says, with further consent, she could give the results to the groom’s family.

She says: “Because that is the game. I need to protect myself as a Doctor here in the UK. So you write down here and you sign, or the patient because she is adult and she can do it herself.”

Family law barrister Naomi Wiseman says: “The clinician is directing everything towards the mother, and she seems to only just then remember, actually, you can’t sign it. She’s an adult. this patient must be feeling at this point, in my view, marginalised. And she’s being referred to as if she’s not in the room.”

Prince Pharmacy told the programme that it has never advertised, promoted or endorsed virginity testing or any related procedures, and would be in support of them being banned. It says the patient did not present as being under any form of coercion or abuse, and it arranged a consultation with a GP for her, in accordance with best practice.

Dr Obaid told the programme she’s a member of the Royal College of GPs and the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists. She says she demonstrated all the professional values, knowledge, skills and behaviours expected of her and supports all initiatives that safeguard patients and abhors any actions that may lead to abuse.

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.”

Aneeta Prem, of the charity Freedom, says since the lockdown, the number of women seeking help because of fears about virginity testing, has risen by 40 percent: “More and more girls and women are reaching out to us, desperate for help and support as families… The groom’s families are becoming more demanding and saying, I know someone has had a certificate, I want proof that this girl is a virgin.”

Former Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal tells Sahar about the context of virginity and honour, saying: “If you’ve lost your virginity outside of marriage, somehow you are tainted, that the community is tainted, your family is tainted, and therefore it can lead to significant harm. they think that a man is entitled to marry a woman who is a virgin, whereas a man can do what he wants.”

Research for the programme found twenty doctors currently offering hymen repair surgery across more than thirty clinics and private hospitals, in England alone, with prices starting at £2,000. One service, with clinics on and around London’s Harley Street, offered what it called “VIP” hymen repairs for nearly £3,000 – for a procedure that could take just ten minutes.

The programme’s undercover reporter Zainab made contact with Anna Camilleri from the service to request a hymen check. At a face-to-face meeting, with Zainab and a second undercover reporter posing as her aunt, Zainab asked her if she would get a report saying she was a virgin.

Anna Camilleri replied: “We can’t use the word virgin, because we are not, it’s a very philosophical word, but we can use [a] medical term.

“Normally we can give you a confirmation that we did examine the patient and we concluded that patient have her hymen intact and into great form, so it’s virgin as you can be… I will need to speak to doctor Horn if we can use the word virgin – but we can focus on your hymen, yeah.”

Despite Anna’s claims, Doctor Horn says someone else should write the hymen report. Barrister Naomi Wiseman, on viewing the footage, says: “We are seeing someone who is trying to, I think, market and push a procedure. And I think you can liken that to almost a sort of grooming process of really working on this patient And I think that is in the context of obtaining medical consent in a voluntary, informed way, hugely problematic.”

Anna Camilleri said she’d introduce the undercover reporters to a Harley Street surgeon, who does the procedure, and they meet Dr Gary Horn at her clinic in Mayfair. The ‘aunt’ asks doctor Horn and Anna what they will do if this procedure is banned, suggesting if it is outlawed then they wouldn’t be able to go ahead. Anna says: “If it becomes illegal then we wouldn’t be able to do it anyway. Up to now, it was perfectly legal, but you know something might change.”

The ‘aunt then says: “But if it’s illegal then we cannot do anything.” Doctor Horn replies: “Then we have to lie. We have to lie. We have to say we are doing something else.”

Anna then says: “You didn’t expect that, but yeah we can we can say that we are doing labial, erm maybe or some other surgery, I don’t know. We’ll see.”

At which point Dr Horn says: “Removal of a cyst.”

Emma Cave, viewing the footage, says: “That’s astounding. This impacts on the patient’s trust in this doctor and it impacts on trust in the profession. This should be something that is referred to the GMC.”

Doctor Horn told the programme he acts ethically at all times and never has, or would, act illegally. He says he misunderstood the question about illegality. He says in sensitive cases patients can be shy, without any suggestion of coercion, that he properly engaged with Zainab and does not do examinations without informed consent.

He says Anna Camilleri’s comments were not authorised by him and are not his views. He only received 2-3 referrals a year from her, and has now stopped.  He says he has only done around 15 hymen repairs in his career and has never written a hymen report.

The programme also put these issues to Anna Camilleri. She declined to comment.

ITV Exposure, tonight, (Monday, November 1st) at 10.45pm on ITV/UTV and at 11.10pm on STV after Scotland Tonight.