The campaigning group Human Rights Watch is urging the Indian government to ban the use of the “finger” test on women who have been raped, which it says is degrading and unscientific.

Many Indian hospitals routinely subject women who have been raped to the test to determine whether they are “habituated” to sexual intercourse, and defence lawyers continue to rely on the “results” of the test in court, says a report from the group.

The practice involves a doctor inserting fingers in the woman’s vagina to determine the presence or absence of the hymen and the …