NHS hospitals have been carrying out illegal 'virginity restoration' operations, campaigners fear.
Officials last year banned the unnecessary surgery that involves creating a fake hymen for women so they can bleed the next time they have sex.
Yet MailOnline can today reveal that 19 hymenoplasties – the medical name for the 'barbaric' procedure – were apparently carried out in 2022/2023. One was done on a girl under 10 years old.
Armed with our 'hugely worrying' Following this revelation, outraged activists and experts have demanded an immediate investigation.
This graph shows the number of 'virgin repairs' recorded in the NHS per year. Charities are concerned about the number of procedures registered in 2022/23, the year the procedure was banned, as it was suspiciously high given the small period in which it remained legal. Source: NHS
A MailOnline investigation reveals that NHS medics may have illegally performed 'virginity restoration' surgery on more than a dozen women and girls in England
Hymenoplasty aims to create an artificial layer of scar tissue that bleeds when torn, 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 pressure to undergo the procedure, with relatives and husbands insisting they must be virgins on their wedding night.
But now anyone who carried out or helped arrange the procedure in Britain could face a five-year prison sentence 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.
This leaves a three-month period during which the procedure was technically legal.
However, for context, only 29 hymenoplasties were performed in the entire year of 2021/2022, which equates to approximately 2.5 per month.
Similar figures were observed pre-Covid, further implying that an unusually high number of surgeries were performed shortly before the ban came into effect.
Data is only available per year, meaning a monthly breakdown is impossible.
These figures also only cover NHS procedures, not private clinics.
Karma Nirvana, a charity that supports victims of honour-related abuse, said surgeons could have 'busted' the operations before the ban came into effect so they were not breaking any laws.
Ministers formally announced the ban in January 2022, six months before it came into effect.
Natasha Rattu, executive director of Karma Nirvana, told MailOnline: 'This is an alarming red flag.
'It was clear what the intention of the law was, the government was clear about that.
“If there are procedures that were carried out just before the law was introduced, that is really concerning. Those children and those individual adults should have been protected.”
If surgeons had not rushed through the operations, the figures recorded by NHS trusts would have been incorrect, 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 scrutinizing its own practice. I think there needs to be an independent investigation into how this happened.”
Her calls for an immediate investigation were echoed by Dr Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
She added: 'The NHS should investigate all cases of hymenoplasty recorded after the procedure was made illegal.
'It may be that some legitimate medical procedures are incorrectly coded as hymenoplasty on NHS data systems. However, it is crucial that there is a clear picture of what is happening as part of protecting women from these harmful procedures.”
Data shows that the average age of girls treated was 26 years.
However, one hymenoplasty was performed on a girl between the ages of five and nine.
Another four were recorded in girls aged between 10 and 14.
Ms Rattu said: 'It is hugely 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 their family home in Acton, west London, in October 2002
'We have duties to safeguard and protect children, it is completely unacceptable that this is allowed to happen.
'(The NHS) endorses the idea that it is OK to have hymenoplasty.'
NHS England refused to reveal exactly when and where the 19 operations were carried out, citing rules around patient confidentiality.
And when the service was initially informed of our findings, it continued to insist that all recorded procedures had been carried out for clinical reasons.
However, government guidelines explicitly state that there is no clinical justification for ever performing the procedure.
In the wake of our revelation, NHS chiefs are now seeking further information from the trusts involved.
But a spokesperson said the cases were likely due to reporting errors by NHS staff.
An NHS England spokesperson said: 'There is no clinical reason that a doctor would repair a hymen, which is why such a procedure is now illegal.
'And the recorded cases are likely the result of incorrect data entry – not because such procedures actually took place.'
Hymenoplasty is registered with the NHS under a specific procedure code, which was dropped in April as the operation was eventually banned.
But Ms Rattu called for the code to remain in place to monitor any persistent cases in the future and to prevent such operations from being hidden away in another category.
In addition to the surgeries potentially being misreported, individual procedures could potentially be recorded more than once, meaning the numbers could be inflated.
The data may also include some procedures associated with follow-up care for previously performed hymenoplasties, but under government guidance these should not be recorded using the specific code in the NHS records.
Hymenoplasty, along with a practice called virginity testing, was banned due to fears of honor-based abuse in some countries. Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Orthodox Jewish communities.
It is illegal to perform hymenoplasty in Britain as well as to have it performed 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 generally believed that it only tears during penetrative sex, the hymen can also be torn due to other conditions, such as sporting activity or inserting tampons.
Because hymenoplasty has no medical benefit, women who undergo the procedure may experience postoperative complications, such as infection, for no reason.
The surgery also carries the risk of leaving scars that will make intercourse painful in the future.
Karma Nirvana warns that women and girls who are pressured to undergo hymenoplasties and virginity tests can often fall victim to other forms of abuse, such as forced marriage.
In 2002, Heshu Yones, then just 16, was murdered by her father at their family home in Acton, west London, after allegedly failing a virginity test. Her murder was the first in Britain to be recognized by police as an honor killing.