Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Agung Laksono has ordered Education Minister Mohammad Nuh to strongly reject and stop South Sumatra's Prabumulih education board head from carrying out his plan to impose virginity tests on high school girls in light of allegations that he initiated the program.
Agung called the test unethical and suggested the local education board provides sex education, information about HIV/AIDS, and family planning to the students instead.
"Isn't there anything better to do?" Agung was quoted as saying by Tempo.co on Wednesday.
However, Prabumulih education board head H.M. Rasyid denied that he proposed the test plan, claiming instead that the media had misinterpreted his statements. "I would like to straighten out that the education board has never suggested the program," he said.
Rasyid said he was responding to a parent whose daughter was accused of not being a virgin after being caught in a police raid. According to him, the parent demanded that the school carry out a test to prove that she was still a virgin.
"I was only responding to that and I supported the idea of a virginity test to avoid the suspicion against the girl," he said.
Rasyid insisted that beside the stated incident, it had never crossed his mind to impose mandatory virginity tests for high school girls, and he did not propose a budget allocation for the tests in the district's budget for next year either.
"Viewed from various perspectives, it certainly is inappropriate, especially in terms of human rights," he argued, adding that the test also violated the law on child protection.
But Indonesian news portal Kompas.com on Tuesday quoted Rasyid as saying that an increase in premarital sex and prostitution among female students had prompted the decision, although he did not provide any data to back his claim.
"We're planning on conducting virginity tests for senior high school students," he reportedly said on Monday. "We have proposed it in the 2014 district budget."
The plan has since been slammed as "unwise" by the education minister. Speaking in Jakarta on Tuesday, Nuh said it was regrettable that this idea had even been raised, and refuted the argument that it would prevent teenage sex.
"If there was proof of that, of course we would issue a circular to that effect. But they must find another way, a wiser one, to address the issue of teenage sex."
"I haven't read the full report on this issue in Prabumulih, and it's neither wise nor judicious," he said at the State Place.
Dedi Gumelar, a Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) legislator in the House of Representatives' Commission X, overseeing educational matters, also criticized the plan and questioned its constitutionality.
"Do we have a law stating that students must be holy? It's written in the country's constitution that every citizen has the right to an education," he said on Tuesday.