A news item from the Jakarta Globe:

Jakarta. The commander of Indonesia’s armed forces believes that invasive virginity tests for female recruits are a good thing and the only way to gauge the women’s morality.

Asked for his response to growing international condemnation of the practice, Gen. Moeldoko insisted to reporters at the State Palace in Jakarta on Friday that the so-called two-finger test was one of the requirements for women joining the Indonesian Military, or TNI.

“So what’s the problem? It’s a good thing, so why criticize it?” he said.

The WHAT?

He conceded, though, that there was no direct link between a woman being a virgin and her abilities as a member of the armed forces, but insisted that virginity was a gauge of a woman’s morality – one of the three key traits he said a woman must have to serve in the TNI, along with high academic aptitude and physical strength.

The virginity test “is a measure of morality. There’s no other way” to determine a person’s morality, Moeldoko claimed.

A person’s? How do they determine men’s morality then? They don’t stick two fingers up’em, I assume, so what do they do?

Also – I know it’s obvious, but what a ridiculous notion of morality. So you can be cruel, sadistic, violent, selfish, and tyrannical, but as long as you’re a virgin, you’re a moral person? Really?

Human Rights Watch has told Indonesia to stop doing this, so that’s why Moeldoko was asked for his thoughts.

The Indonesian Council of Ulema, or MUI, the country’s highest Islamic authority, has also come out in opposition to the practice, saying it goes against Muslim jurisprudence, Tempo reported on Saturday.

Syarifudin Damanhuri, the head of an East Java district chapter of the MUI, suggested a religion test instead, arguing that it would give military recruiters a better profile of an individual’s character than a virginity test ever could.

No. No, that won’t do either.

To justify the tests, military officers told female recruits they were crucial to preserving “the dignity and the honor of the nation,” HRW said.

Officers who wish to marry require a letter of recommendation from their commanders, who only issue them upon confirmation that the fiancée has undergone a medical examination, including the “virginity test” at a military hospital.

WHAT??

Sorry to keep shouting, but really. Women who plan to marry officers have to get a “virginity test” at a military hospital?! That’s grotesque.

I wonder if the hospitals require the women to wear high heels while they’re being “tested.”