The word "virgin" must be removed from Muslim marriage certificates in Bangladesh, the country's top court has said, a landmark verdict after campaigners challenged the "humiliating and discriminatory" term.
Under the South Asian country's Muslim marriage laws, a bride has to select one of three options on the certificate - whether she is a Kumari (virgin), a widow or divorced.
In a brief verdict on Sunday, the court ordered the government to remove the term and replace it with "unmarried", deputy attorney general Amit Talukder told AFP.
The court is expected to publish its full verdict by October, with the changes to the certificate expected to come into effect then.
"It is a landmark verdict," Aynun Nahar Siddiqua, a lawyer for the groups which filed the case challenging the term in 2014, told AFP on Monday.
'Against the person’s right to privacy'
Ainun Nahar Siddiqua, one of two lawyers involved in the case, said the case dated back to 2014 with the filing of a writ petition to change in the form provided under the 1974 Bangladesh Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act.
“It’s a ruling that gives us the belief that we can fight and create more changes for women in the future,” Siddiqua, of Bangladesh Legal Aid And Services Trust (BLAST), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“We filed a writ petition because asking whether someone’s a virgin or not is against the person’s right to privacy.”
Mohammad Ali Akbar Sarker, a Muslim marriage registrar from Dhaka, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that registrars like him were waiting for the Ministry of Law and Justice to officially inform them about the changes in the form.
“I have conducted many marriages in Dhaka and I have often been asked why men have the liberty to not disclose their status but women don’t. I always told them this wasn’t in my hands. I guess I won’t be asked that question anymore,” said Sarker.
Rights groups have long criticised the term, used in certificates since they were introduced in 1961, saying it is "humiliating and discriminatory", and that it breaches the privacy of the woman getting married.
The judgement also ordered authorities to introduce the options "unmarried, widower or divorced" for the groom on the certificate.
Bangladesh is the world's third-largest Muslim majority nation and nearly 90 per cent of its 168 million population are Muslims.
