Sense over State in resolving modernity

By refusing to give in to demands to make virginity tests mandatory for teenage girls, the Indonesian government has taken the country that much closer to  both modernity and a better understanding of human rights.

Fearing that the Internet and the changing world were leading to a rise in teenage pregnancies, or at least encouraging
premarital sex, conservative forces had asked that girls be submitted to virginity tests before they were allowed to enter state-funded high schools. Interestingly, the government feels that parents must play a greater role in managing their children’s moral compasses than place such a burden on young girls.

That is in fact the answer for many areas of our private lives. Those frightened by change in all societies ask for government intervention when they cannot relate to shifting moral positions and the apparently threatening
values of young people. Indonesia — itself grappling with the challenges of modernisation in a conservative Muslim society — has decided to look forward and to use common sense to deal with a problem which is an
integral part of the human condition. It provides an example for all societies in similar predicaments.