There’s been a change in the law in the African country of Kenya, which forbids a cruel and inaccurate medical procedure to determine if someone is gay or not.
There are over 70 countries in the world where homosexuality or sex between two men is illegal. Some of those countries have been known to force people suspected of being gay to have anal examinations.
What is an anal exam?
An anal examination would involve a doctor or other authority figure stripping someone, forcing them into a position to expose their anus and looking at the outside of their anus to determine whether that person had had anal sex.
There is a belief that the anus looks different if anal sex has taken place.
Some people who have experienced this cruel and humiliating practice have also spoken out about how fingers or other instruments were inserted into their anuses to determine the virginity of their rectums.
These tests are rarely done in private and may have several people present whilst the exam takes place.
Outdated
In practice, this sort of test is outdated and rarely, if ever, accurate. According to the Human Rights Watch, the test was discredited in the 19th century and note that many people who are forced to have these examines live with lasting psychological trauma.
The biggest lie in the history of medicine.
Doctor Sami Kawas, a forensic doctor says, “It is completely unreliable. Anal exam cannot tell you if you’re a homosexual or not whether you’re passive or you’re active this is the biggest lie ever created in the history of medicine”.
WATCH: This video includes testimony from people who were forced to take an anal examination.
Sticking anything inside someone’s anus, into their anal canal without their explicit consent would surely constitute a form of sexual assault.
Despite this anal examination outcomes are used in the prosecution of men suspected of having same-sex sex. HRW count Egypt and Tunisia as examples of countries that use this evidence to prosecute. A report is prepared and used in court as a form of evidence.
