Asian women subjected to 'virginity tests' at Heathrow
The government is facing calls for an official apology after documents showed that Asian women were subjected to humiliating “virginity tests” when they tried to move to Britain in the late 1970s.
At least 80 women from India and Pakistan hoping to emigrate to Britain to marry were intimately examined by immigration staff to “check their marital status”, according to confidential Home Office files. The files show the practice was more common than previously thought. The technique was banned in February 1979 after a national newspaper revealed that a 35-year-old Indian woman was examined by a male doctor at Heathrow to check whether she was in fact a virgin. The Home Office initially denied that any internal examination had taken place. The woman was offered £500 “in recognition” of distress caused but there was no apology.