Miga was selected as an Asian Girls Ambassador and Asian Girls Human Rights Award winner for her courage and strength to confront gender stereotypes at all levels.

At school, she declared that girls should be allowed to play the morin khuur – a traditional Mongolian string instrument – even though that means sitting with their legs apart. At the national level, she has represented her district to raise awareness of gender issues. At the international level, she represented Mongolia and Asia at the Zurich Conference to speak about the difficulties faced by young girl advocates.

Upon receiving her award, Miga dived straight into her project against virginity tests, which happen nationally to girls between grades 7 and 12. She and her team reached out to 370 school girls of all ages in those grades to ask about their thoughts on and experiences with the test. According to the UN Human Rights Office, virginity testing is “medically unnecessary, and often is a painful, humiliating and traumatic practice that must end.”

Although Mongolian officials claim that the test is to benefit the well-being and development of girls’ health, it is not standardized across the country. Each school decides when the tests are to be conducted, whether individual testing will be done, and what reproductive health information they will give to the girls.

Of those who took part in Miga’s survey, 50% said they understand that the test is used to protect girls’ reproductive health, 20% did not know why they have to take the test, and 30% knew the tests are about virginity. Only 20% felt they had sufficient, in-depth knowledge of reproductive health, and only 23% felt the test was effective in preventing risks such as unwanted pregnancy and STDs. The findings from the research demonstrate that girls do not feel the test benefits either their health or knowledge of health despite the claims of the government. Alarmingly, 72% of girls said that they did not give their consent to have the tests, and 43.7% said that, regardless of what they said, they had been forcefully examined.

Miga and her team published the report, which received lots of attention amongst the press and media and has successfully gotten boys and girls to re-evaluate the necessity of the tests. The discussion was so widespread that it was even incorporated into a drama on national TV! However, there is still a long way to go with the project. As of now, the government has prevented the survey conducted by Miga’s teams from being published, and she personally had to face hate comments asking why she was afraid of taking the test. Even so, this has only reinforced her determination to fight for the rights of girls and protect the well-being of human rights advocates.