Virginity Testing and the Politics of Sexual Responsibility: Implications for AIDS Intervention

Abstract

This article presents some early reflections on material gathered in KwaZulu-Natal during the months from May 2000 to October 2001 as part of doctoral research in social anthropology. During this time I traced the activities of participants in the virginity testing movement2 in townships in the Pietermaritzburg and Durban areas (mainly Edendale Willowfontein Kwa Mashu and Lindelani) over a period of five months. Further research was then carried out in a village in the Hlanganani region of the southern Drakensburg where I lived and worked as a volunteer high-school teacher for just under a year. The village some forty kilometres north-west of Ixopo is part of the Tribal Authority of Isibonelo Esihle in the south-western part of KwaZulu-Natal. It borders a large Roman Catholic mission station known as Centocow and is located on what was once reserve land owned and administered by the mission from around 1895. Today the majority of residents in the area are Catholic. Main sources of income include pensions welfare grants and remittances from migrants and households depend heavily on domestic crops grown for subsistence. The mission hospital serves a large section of the surrounding countryside and has an AIDS drop-in centre that provides a testing and counselling service and on-going monitoring of the treatment received by AIDS patients. (excerpt)