Fears NHS carried out ILLEGAL “repair” operation as campaigners demand immediate investigation

NHS hospitals have been carrying out illegal “virginity restoration” operations, campaigners fear.

Last year, officials banned the unnecessary surgery that creates a false hymen for women so they can bleed the next time they have sex.

However, MailOnline can reveal today that 19 hymenoplasties – the medical term for the “barbaric” procedure – are believed to have been carried out in 2022/2023. One of them was performed on a girl under 10 years old.

Armed with our “extremely alarming” After this revelation, outraged activists and experts called for an immediate investigation.

A MailOnline investigation reveals NHS doctors in England may have illegally performed virginity restoration operations on more than a dozen women and girls

The purpose of hymenoplasty is to create an artificial scar layer that bleeds when torn, thereby mimicking the tearing of the hymen during sex. Before it was banned last July, private clinics charged up to £3,000 for the 30-minute operation.

Muslim women and girls were one group who felt pressured to undergo the procedure, as family members and husbands insisted that they be virgins on their wedding night.

But now anyone who carried out or helped organize the process in the UK faces up to five years in prison and/or an unlimited fine.

NHS figures researched by this website show that 19 hymenoplasties were carried out in hospitals in England between April 2022 and March this year.

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This leaves a three-month period during which the procedure was technically legal.

However, only 29 hymenoplasties were performed in the whole of 2021/2022, corresponding to approximately 2.5 per month.

Similar numbers were already observed before Corona, which further suggests that an unusually large number of operations were performed shortly before the ban came into effect.

As the data is only available per year, a monthly breakdown is not possible.

These figures also only relate to NHS procedures, not private clinics.

Karma Nirvana, a charity which supports victims of honor abuse, said the surgeons were able to “prevent” the operations before the ban came into effect so they would not have broken any laws.

Ministers officially announced the ban in January 2022, six months before it came into force.

Karma Nirvana managing director Natasha Rattu told MailOnline: “This is a worrying warning sign.”

“It was clear what the intention of the law was, the government was clear about that.”

“If there are procedures that were carried out immediately before the law was introduced, it is really worrying. These children and these individual adults should have been protected.”

If surgeons had not rushed through the operations, the figures recorded by NHS trusts would have been wrong or some would have been carried out illegally.

Ms Rattu, a law graduate, added: “Parliamentary intervention is needed to review this.

“I don’t know how independent the NHS can be in reviewing its own practice. “I think there should be an independent inquiry into how this happened.”

Their demands for an immediate investigation were met by dr. Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, confirms.

She added: “The NHS must investigate all cases of hymenoplasty recorded after the procedure was outlawed.”

“It may be that some legitimate medical procedures are being miscoded as hymenoplasty in the NHS data systems. However, it is vital that a clear picture emerges of what is happening in the context of protecting women from these harmful procedures.”

Data shows the average age of girls treated was 26 years old.

However, a girl between the ages of five and nine underwent hyphenoplasty.

Another four were recorded in girls between the ages of 10 and 14.

Ms Rattu said: “It is extremely worrying that the NHS has allowed this to happen to a child.”

Heshu Yones (left) was 16 when her throat was slit by her strict Kurdish Muslim father Abdalla Yones (right) at her family home in Acton, West London, in October 2002

“We have a duty to protect and protect children. It is completely unacceptable that something like this is allowed to happen.”

‘[The NHS] support the idea that it is okay to undergo hyphenoplasty.”

NHS England refused to reveal the exact time and place of the 19 operations, citing patient confidentiality rules.

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And when the service was initially informed of our findings, they continued to insist that all procedures recorded were performed for clinical reasons.

However, government guidelines specifically state that there is no clinical justification for ever performing the procedure.

Following our revelation, NHS bosses are now seeking further information from the trusts involved.

However, a spokesman said the cases were likely due to reporting errors by NHS staff.

A spokesman for NHS England said: “There is no clinical reason why a doctor would repair a hymen, which is why such a procedure is now illegal.”

“And the recorded cases are probably the result of incorrect data entry – not because such events actually occurred.”

Hymenoplasty is registered with the NHS under a special procedure code, which was dropped in April when the operation was finally banned.

However, Ms Rattu asked that the code should remain in place to monitor all persistent cases in the future and prevent such operations from being hidden in another category.

In addition to the potential for misreporting of operations, there is a possibility that individual procedures may be recorded more than once, leading to inflated numbers.

The data may also include certain procedures relating to follow-up care for previously performed hymenoplasties, but these should not be recorded using the specific code in NHS records according to government guidance.

In some countries, hymenoplasty has been banned, along with a practice called virginity testing, for fear of honor abuse. Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Orthodox Jewish communities.

It is illegal to carry out a hymenoplasty in the UK and also have it carried out by a British person abroad.

Hymenoplasty and virginity testing have no medical or scientific basis as virginity is a cultural construct and not a biological construct.

Although it is commonly believed that it only tears during penetrative sex, the hymen can also tear due to other medical conditions, such as: exercise or insert tampons.

Since hymenoplasty has no medical benefit, women undergoing the procedure may experience postoperative complications such as infections for no reason.

The operation also carries the risk of leaving scars that will make sexual intercourse painful in the future.

Karma Nirvana warns that women and girls who are pressured to undergo hyphenoplasty and virginity tests often become victims of other forms of abuse, such as forced marriage.

In 2002, Heshu Yones, then just 16, was murdered by her father at her family home in Acton, West London, after allegedly failing a virginity test. Her murder was the first in Britain to be recognized by the police as an honor killing.