Dozens of clinics, private hospitals and pharmacies are offering controversial hymen repair surgery,an undercover investigation has revealed, as the government moves closer to banning the harmful practice.

It has already pledged to outlaw virginity tests – an intrusive and unscientific examination to assess whether the hymen is intact.

But some private clinics are still promising to “restore virginity”through a procedure known as hymenoplasty, where scar tissue in the vagina is used to reconstruct a hymen.Health professionals and campaigners have condemned both practices as a form of violence against women and girls.

On Wednesday Edward Argar,the health minister, reiterated the government’s pledge to ban the tests, adding:“We are seeking a four-nation-wide agreement to ban virginity testing.” He signalled that hymenoplasty will be criminalised at the earliest opportunity pending the findings of an expert panel commissioned to examine the clinical and ethical aspects of the procedure.

The shadow health minister Alex Norris told a Commons committee the panel was“already strongly of one voice” in support of legislation.

Aneeta Prem, who runs the charity Freedom,told an ITV documentary due to air on Monday that the number of women and girls seeking its help because they are coming under pressure to have virginity tests had risen by 40% since lockdown.

Typically they are made to have the tests by relatives wishing to present them as virgins who will bleed when they have sex on their wedding night – even though studies have shown such bleeding is not routine. Prem said:“Grooms’ families are becoming more demanding and saying, ‘I know someone who has had a certificate,I want proof that this girl is a virgin.’”

One woman she supported, named Beyza,* told how her parents took her for a virginity test at a pharmacy. In desperation,she admitted to her mother she had had sex.Hymenoplasty was carried out there and then in a back room.

She said:“It felt more shameful than not being a virgin. Why are you allowing this man I don’t know to touch me?It’s morally wrong,it needs to stop. And the fact they are making money out of it is disgusting.”

Read more- https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/31/exposed-uk-clinics-still-offering-to-restore-virginity-before-marriage