Baroness Brinton
Main Page: Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Lord Bethell
My noble friend describes an extremely distressing situation. I am very grateful to her for meeting me yesterday to discuss specifically the situation with the Yazidis. The NGOs involved might have been well-intentioned but their offers of either devirginification or hymenoplasty were clearly wrong-headed. Clearly, there is a gap here that needs to be filled and I would be glad to do whatever I can to arrange a suitable meeting.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, in November the US rapper TI revealed in a blog that he had paid for hymen checks on his 18 year-old daughter and got the doctor to give him the result. In 2018, three United Nations agencies condemned such tests, the WHO saying that
“this medically unnecessary, and often times painful, humiliating and traumatic practice must end.”
Can the Minister confirm that this process will be examined and banned in the UK, along with hymenoplasty?
Lord Bethell
The noble Baroness is quite right. It is extremely distressing to hear of these stories. The Government are absolutely determined to catch up and review exactly these kinds of procedures. The full scope of the review is under analysis at the moment, but the suggestion of including such examinations is a good one, and we will look at it carefully.