A South African mayor has started a new ‘initiative’, awarding college scholarships to 16 young women for remaining virgins. The scholarship, introduced this year, will be awarded to women from the Uthukela district in the eastern KwaZulu-Natal province and is supposed to encourage girls to be ‘pure and focus on school’.
The young women who apply for the scholarships are virgins voluntarily and agree to having regular virginity tests.
Mayoral spokesperson Jabulani Mkhonza said “To us, it’s just to say ‘thank you’ for keeping yourself and you can still keep yourself for the next three years until you get your degree or certificate”.
The grants are renewed annually “as long as the child can produce a certificate that she is still a virgin”.
In 2014, South Africa’s department of basic education recorded about 20,000 pregnancies among girls and young women in schools.
Commission for Gender Equality chairman Mfanozelwe Shozi said “I think the intentions of the mayor are great but what we don’t agree with is giving bursaries for virginity. There is an issue around discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, virginity and even against boys. This is going too far”.