An odd regulation in Beichan village, Dazu county, Chongqing province, China, now requires emigrant women laborers to have a medical exam for “virginity verification” if they desire to receive compensation for land requisition. Five unmarried women are at their wits-end with this regulation now in place.

As reported by Chongqing Evening News, Luo Wenhua, head of the second commune of Beichan village, held a meeting in early May among commune members to discuss the compensation plan for land requisition. In regards to the issue of unmarried women receiving compensation for land requisition, Luo demanded that Tan Shuying and four other unmarried women come back from their work outside town in order to have the “virginity verification” done. The medical results of the verification would determine whether they would get compensation.

Luo said that the primary reason why an unmarried emigrant woman laborer over the age of twenty had to get the "virginity verification" done was because some villagers suspected that they had already gotten married but did not want to report it so that they could continue to enjoy welfare as a member of the commune. He stressed that according to the village regulations and community rules, all women in the village would stop receiving welfare from the village or the commune after getting married.

Luo said that he was going to ask some women cadres to take the unmarried women to the birth-control hospital for the physical examination. “Those who are proven to still be virgins will get every penny of the compensation. The commune will also pay their travel expenses. The commune won’t pay anything to those who are found to not be virgins,” said Luo.

Yan Qiang, secretary of CCP branch in Longgang community office in Dazu county, said that the demand for a "virginity verification" was illegal and that this mistake should be corrected immediately. He said that the “village regulations and public rules” of some villages or communes were in contradiction with the government’s laws and regulations, and that they and the related departments would reinforce a legal education of the basic-level cadres.

Zhou Yongqiang, a lawyer, said that because the collective-owned land in the countryside is the common property of the villagers, every villager has the right to get compensation after the land is requisitioned regardless of whether a woman is a virgin or married. He thought that it was an infringement on one’s privacy to publicly announce the information about one’s virginity.

Update: As reported by China Youth Daily, the regulation was abolished by the local government on May 19. On May 24, the five unmarried women were told that they have the right to get the compensation.