Bangladesh: Activists hail ruling on marriage forms

DHAKA, Bangladesh

Women rights activists in Bangladesh have welcomed a top court ruling removing the word virgin in the Muslim marriage certificate on grounds of discrimination and breach of privacy.

For decades, the South Asian nation had been using the term virgin to signify the bride's status in the marriage document.

In Sunday’s ruling, the court also asked the government to add a clause for the groom in the document stating whether he is unmarried, a widower or divorcee.

"We explained before the court the word 'virgin' is totally a matter of privacy and noting down the virginity of only a woman during marriage is absolutely a discriminatory provision," said Ainun Nahar Lipi, a lawyer representing Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust, one of the two rights bodies which filed a petition in the court in 2014.

Terming this a landmark verdict, she said Muslim law does not have such a humiliating provision anywhere.

"Whether an unmarried woman is virgin is not an issue that should be declared publicly,” Khalilur Rahman Madani, a Muslim scholar, told Anadolu Agency.

The word virgin in the marriage certificate stemmed from the Bengali word ‘kumari’ which means unmarried.