The Government Commission of South Africa Has Declared Scholarships Virgins in a Municipality of KwaZulu-Natal Province Unconstitutional.
After the announcement was made earlier this year in the Municipality of KwaZulu-Natal province, Human right activists has condemned exercise, saying the test of virginity is not to determined learning and that is unconstitutional.
It will be recalled in late January, the uThukela municipality the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), awarded maidens bursaries to 16 students on a condition they refrain from sex until after graduation.
There was an investigation conducted by the commission for "gender equality" referring to the study grant as unlawful.
The commission went further to say "a bursary contingent on a female's student's virginity is fundamentally discriminatory.
"It goes against the ethos of the constitutional provisions in relations to dignity, equality and discrimination."
One of the conditions of the scholarship the students will have to face on every holidays, is that the students will be subjected to supposed virginity test in a traditional way and it will be conducted by elderly women in which such activities has been highly criticized by civil right groups and rejected by medical experts.
"Virginity is not intrinsic to the task of studying," the commission added, given the municipality 60 to respond to its recommendation that the scholarship scheme should be closed.
The Mayor of the municipality Dudu Mazibuko explained in his word to AFP News agency in March that the scheme were an effective way to curd the spread of HIV and control teenage pregnancies.
But women's rights activists have condemned the initiative, arguing that not only it undermined civil liberties, but was also counter-productive and short-sighted in the larger struggle against HIV/AIDS in the country.
Sisonke Msimang, a policy development and advocacy consultant for the Sonke Gender Justice project in Johannesburg, told Al Jazeera in January that the scholarship was "a terrible idea [that] had so many layers of ridiculousness".
"Being sexually active and seeking an education have nothing to do with each other," Msimang said.
South Africa is home to 6.4 million HIV positive people, the highest in the world. In 2014, medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) said 25.2 percent of KZN's adult population was HIV positive, compared to the national average of 17.9 percent.
Women in KZN were also disproportionately affected by the virus, MSF said.
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