Editor’s note: This article contains sensitive descriptions of sexual violence and medico-legal examinations that some readers may find distressing.

She was pushed to the brink — nearly taking her own life — after police refused to register a complaint in a sexual assault case.

Kathmandu District Court case number 080-C1-3663. A 56-year-old senior government official had employed a 24-year-old woman as a “part-time” domestic help. She tried to file a complaint alleging that he had committed sexual violence against her.

She went from one police station to another—first Gaushala, then Kalimati, then, as suggested by Kalimati police, to Teku, then back again to Gaushala and Kalimati. When it was still not registered, she went to Ranipokhari Police. When her complaint went unheard there, she even approached the Ministry of Home Affairs.

When nothing worked, she attempted suicide by hanging herself in her room, but was rescued by chance and survived. Only after she warned that she would self-immolate outside the police station was her complaint finally registered.

According to her court statement, the house owner used to forcibly insert his penis into her mouth.

Legally, such an act amounts to rape.

Case registration, however, was only the first step. What followed was a labyrinthine official process. She was then taken to Paropakar Maternity and Women’s Hospital in Thapathali for a physical examination.

The medical report submitted to the court stated that there were no fresh scratches or injuries on her body, and that there was an old scar, about three years old, on her left arm. “Her hymen was already torn (“hymen: old tear”),” the report stated further.

The woman, a divorcee, had accused the man of forcing oral sex on her. But the doctor's examination focused on her hymen.

Hymen examinations are routinely conducted on rape survivors in Nepal, despite medical science making clear that such tests cannot prove rape. The condition of the hymen — whether torn or intact — cannot determine whether rape or even sexual intercourse occurred.

What was particularly troubling in this case was that she was subjected to a hymen examination even though her complaint involved oral sexual assault.

For more than 25 years, Nepal’s Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the rupture — or absence — of the hymen has no bearing on whether rape occurred. The World Health Organisation has condemned such examinations as an invasion of women’s privacy and dignity. India’s Supreme Court has gone a step further, banning the practice altogether.

Yet in Nepal, the test continues — routinely administered, with little explanation as to why.

This raises a question: what evidence exactly are doctors, police, lawyers, and judges trying to get from the hymen of a married woman who alleges forced oral sex?

The legal rule that makes hymen examination mandatory in rape cases in Nepal is the “Regulations on Investigation of Offences 2018.” Along with other details, the regulation requires doctors to state whether the hymen is torn in the medical report. This provision was copied from the “Regulations Relating to State Prosecuted Cases 1998.”

According to legal experts, such rules ignore major legal reforms in the definition of rape.

When the 1998 regulation was enacted, the Muluki Ain (National Code) defined rape only as “penile penetration into the vagina”. That narrow definition was changed in the Sexual Offences Act of 2015, which included anal or oral penetration as rape.

In other words, under the law that has been in force for the last 10 years, rape is not confined just as penetration into a woman’s genital organs. However, the Regulation on Investigation of Offences, which came into effect on 18 November 2018, requires virginity testing in rape cases.

Advocate Shashi Basnet says the regulation reflects an outdated belief that if rape occurs, the hymen must be torn. She argues that it ignores the updated legal definition of rape and reflects an old mindset that only vaginal penetration constitutes rape. It also carries the assumption that women who are sexually active cannot be raped.

According to doctors, a hymen examination assesses the condition of the thin membrane at the vaginal opening, primarily whether it is torn.

Dr Kritipal Subedi, a gynaecologist at Bheri Hospital, says such examinations cannot determine rape. “It is a traditional practice that has no evidentiary value,” he says.

The hymen can tear due to a range of factors, including cycling, horse riding, sports, exercise, childbirth, surgery, gynaecological examinations, or natural bodily development. It can also rupture during consensual sex or rape.

Medical science, however, cannot determine the specific cause of a hymenal tear, nor can it establish when it occurred. Most importantly, even if a tear is linked to sexual intercourse, it cannot determine whether that intercourse was consensual or forced, according to Subedi.

Doctors say that women with an active sexual history who are later victims of rape may not show fresh hymenal injuries. Given the scientific consensus that a hymen examination has no evidentiary value, experts say that subjecting a survivor to such a test — particularly in cases such as a divorced woman alleging forced oral sex — is prima facie unjustified.

In 2018, the World Health Organisation formally rejected hymen testing in sexual violence cases as “scientifically and medically baseless” and a “human rights violation.” The UN Human Rights Office, UN Women, and WHO jointly called for countries to stop the practice immediately.

Their joint statement says, “virginity testing has no scientific or clinical basis, and no examination can determine whether a woman has had sexual intercourse. It adds that the practice is painful, humiliating and traumatic, and may lead to re-traumatisation of survivors of sexual violence.”

Similarly, in 2022, the Supreme Court of India banned the test in the case of the State of Jharkhand vs Shailendra Kumar Rai. The court said the belief that a sexually active woman cannot be raped is “completely wrong.”

The Indian Supreme Court ruled that such testing violates women’s dignity and that prior sexual history is irrelevant in determining rape. It also warned that doctors conducting such tests may face disciplinary action. The practice stopped in India following the court verdict.

In Nepal, too, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held for the past 25 years that such tests have no evidentiary value. Despite these rulings, regulations still require police to refer survivors for examination, and doctors continue to perform hymen tests.

Legal precedents suggest how the Supreme Court’s interpretation of rape has evolved over time.

Until 1974, the court had said that if a victim had no physical injuries and did not cry for help, rape allegations would not be credible. “The woman must have expressed unwillingness and somehow diverted the man’s sexual desire, rendering his sexual organ ineffective, even if only for a short time,” the Supreme Court, in a 1973 judgment, placed the burden of blame for rape on the victim herself.

In the half-century since then, the Supreme Court appears to have moved far beyond such rulings that required resistance and bodily injury as necessary conditions for rape.

In 2000, the Supreme Court stated that the fact that a victim’s hymen was already torn does not mean that rape did not occur. This judgment marked a significant shift in the Court’s earlier approach. Later, the court issued another ruling stating that in rape cases, there is usually no direct eyewitness, and that the victim is the primary witness, with her statement forming the central piece of evidence.

In 2007, it ruled that rape cases usually have no eyewitnesses and the victim’s testimony is key evidence. Four years after that judgment, in 2011, the court stated that even if a medical report does not show signs of rape when a physical examination is conducted 10 days after the incident, the offence can still be established on the basis of circumstantial evidence.

And in 2014, the court established a precedent that, in principle, settled the issue. It stated that it is not mandatory for the hymen to be torn for rape to have occurred.

In other words, rulings from 2000 to 2014 established that rape may still have occurred even if the hymen is not torn, and that even if the hymen was already torn, the offence of rape may still have been committed.

In 2016, the then Muluki Ain (National Code) was amended, changing the definition of rape. It expanded the scope to include “penetration” of any object into a woman’s body as rape. The following year, the Supreme Court ruled that women can also commit rape against other women using a sex toy.

In 2019, in what appeared to be a summary of its jurisprudence over the past two decades, the top court stated that it is not mandatory under Nepali law for rape to be established through a torn hymen, signs of resistance, or the presence of semen.

Yet, in May last year, the Kathmandu District Court, in a case of forced oral sex involving a government employee, listed—among other factors—a medical report stating that the hymen was already torn as one of the grounds for not establishing rape.

Why?

Doctors say the main reason is institutional inertia. Hymen testing has been practised for decades. Police send victims with medico-legal forms to hospitals. Hospitals fill out the forms and return them. Courts treat them as evidence.

These are then included in the case file as medical examination reports. Prosecutors and judges accept them as evidence. In such cases, if the hymen is already torn, it is often interpreted as indicating that the woman has an active sexual life, and therefore that the sexual encounter was consensual.

“If it is already torn, we also write that in reports and testify the same in court,” says senior gynaecologist Dr Jageshwar Gautam. “But a doctor can never determine whether rape occurred. Therefore, the decision on the verdict rests not with the doctor, but with the judge.”

Advocate Basnet says doctors, after examining the hymen, report whether there is a tear or not, but in court they often state, “I cannot say whether rape has occurred or not.” She argues that this creates doubt in the case, and in criminal law, the benefit of the doubt goes to the accused, often leading to acquittals.

“This kind of examination has been used as a tool to deny justice to victims. It should be stopped,” she said.

So far, no authority has taken steps to ban it.

The Ministry of Health and the Medical Council have not issued guidelines. Even as the top court has repeatedly said the test is meaningless, it has not issued a prohibitory order.

Advocate Basnet says other medical examinations remain necessary, including assessments of physical injuries and mental condition. “Where excessive force is used, injuries need to be examined and treated,” she said. “Examinations are also important to understand the victim’s mental condition.”

Doctors say medical tests should support victims rather than undermine their cases. However, hymenal examinations often place a victim’s statement and other evidence under suspicion. One such example is the case involving the government employee.

In that case, based on findings in the medical report stating that the hymen had already been torn, among other evidence, the Kathmandu District Court concluded that rape could not be established and acquitted the accused last year.

When Sabita Bhandari was the Attorney General of the election government, the Office of the Attorney General decided not to appeal against this verdict. The victim told Kantipur that due to threats received via phone and trolling on social media, she reached a point where she could no longer live in Nepal and has now gone to a Gulf country for work. (Since the court has already acquitted the accused and the Office of the Attorney General decided not to appeal, Kantipur has not mentioned the name of the accused.)

In this case, related to allegations of forced oral sex, the doctor submitted a report stating: “the hymen was already torn.”

Advocate Basnet, who is familiar with the case, says such a report ends up stigmatising the victim and devaluing her overall claim.

Initially, the district court ordered that the official be taken into custody for pretrial detention. When he filed a petition against this in the High Court, he cited, among other grounds, the medical report stating that the hymen was already torn, arguing: “She is a married woman and her hymen was already torn. Therefore, this medical examination report is not evidence of rape… It proves my innocence and falsifies the allegations made in the complaint.”

After the woman’s physical examination, the doctor issued a report stating that the hymen was already torn (hymen old tear), and doctor also testified to the same in court. Later, the wife of the accused official, who appeared as a witness, stated in her testimony: “The mention of ‘old hymenal tear’ in the victim’s medical report does not confirm that the defendant committed rape against her.”

At one point, in the presence of the judge, the accused official’s lawyer, Nagesh Krishna Pokharel, asked the victim: “Your medical report mentions that your hymen appears to have been torn earlier. When and what led to the tear?”

The court then delivered its verdict, stating: “The defendant is 56 years old and appears to be undergoing regular medical treatment and taking medication, whereas the complainant victim is 24 years old. She is healthy and also divorced. Even though she resisted the accused during the attempted rape and even while being forced into oral sex, there were no visible injuries indicating resistance, such as biting. The victim’s medical report mentions an old hymenal tear and no other injuries on the body.”

The judgment by District Judge Khimananad Bhusal resembles a copy of a 1973 Supreme Court precedent, which held that if there are no injuries on the body and the woman did not immediately report rape, such an allegation is not credible.

Human rights activists say such practices amount to secondary victimisation of women. A 2018 World Health Organisation appeal also described such examinations as unscientific and a form of sexual violence. Under international legal standards, such procedures may amount to rape or torture.

The appeal stated that an examination of the hymen cannot determine whether rape occurred, nor can it assess the trauma or severity of sexual violence. It further warned that such unscientific test results can influence judicial proceedings, often contributing to acquittals and the loss of cases for victims.

On June 12, 2025, the Kathmandu District Court concluded the case of the domestic worker. The charge of rape was not established, and the accused was acquitted. The phrase “hymen old tear” mentioned in the medical report became the key factor that contributed to the case being dismissed and the victim being stigmatised.

She left the country. The government did not appeal the case.

But the questions over the flawed test don’t end there.

According to police statistics, on average, five women or girls are raped every day in the country. At any given moment, some of them are arriving at police stations to file complaints. And every day, hymen examinations of sexual violence survivors continue to be conducted. Courts continue to accept such examinations as evidence—evidence that proves nothing.

“If it does not prove anything,” says Advocate Basnet, “then that report has no usefulness at all.”