Iraqi women face virginity tests ordering by courts to shame those who lost it before marriage, doctors working at the institute that carries out the tests and a lawyer told AFP.

Virginity for unmarried women remains the most important moral value in Iraqi society in a manner that they order court to approve their virginity or shame those who lost it before marrige.
An average of several virginity tests are performed per day at the Medical Legal Institute (MLI) in Baghdad.
“Most of the cases we received after the first day of marriage,” said Dr. Munjid al-Rezali, the director of the MLI.
“The husband claim that she is not a virgin, and then the family brings her here, through the courts, this all come through the courts, and we examine her,” Rezali said.
“They think that during the marriage, (the) first day of marriage, there should be blood... they think if there is no blood, there is no virginity,” said Dr. Sami Dawood, a forensic doctor at the MLI who has been involved in the tests.
This belief, he said, indicates that sex education and knowledge is “very poor.”
If a man thinks his new wife is not a virgin, he may take the issue to court, leading to the MLI performing a virginity test, said Dawood.
Asked about the results of the tests, Dawood said that “most of them (are) with the woman, not against the woman, but it is by itself... shaming.”
Remaining virgin untile marrige is an issue of life or death for Middle-Eastren women. Those who had premarital sex face serious violence and often death ordered by male relatives.