WUNRN
AWID - http://www.awid.org
Association for Women's Rights in
Development
Forced
Sterilisation of Roma Women
Abuse
of Roma Women's Reproductive Rights Through Forced
Sterilisation.
By Kathambi Kinoti - AWID
The Roma people have been subject to various forms of discrimination for
centuries. This includes discrimination in access to education, housing,
medical care and other services, and extends to violence and other human
rights abuses. The racial discrimination against the Roma has also extended
to state-sponsored attempts to control their reproductive capacities in
order to contain or reduce their population.
Part of the Nazi regime's ethnic cleansing of the Roma people was their
practice of forced sterilisation. In recent years, Romani women in
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia have also been
subjected to forced sterilisation. From the 1970s until 1990 the communist
government of Czechoslovakia sterilised Romani women as part of an official
policy to reduce their 'high, unhealthy' birth rate. [1] They implemented
their policy through programmes that provided monetary incentives for women
to undergo the operation, and condoned misinformation and coercion. Although
it has been assumed that the practice ended in the 1990s, the European Roma
Rights Centre says that there is evidence that coercive sterilisations
continue to date. [2]
Cases have been documented of women in the Czech Republic and Slovakia
having undergone sterilisation operations where neither oral nor written
consent was obtained prior to the operation. In a number of cases consent
was obtained under questionable circumstances such as when a woman was in
advanced stages of labour or during delivery.
Many women have been irresponsibly subjected to caesarean sections as a
pretext for sterilisation. There are cases where consent has been given on
the basis of incomplete and inadequate information about the consequences
of sterilisation or alternative methods of contraception. Some women under
the age of 18 have been sterilised without the required authorisation of
their legal guardians. Many women have been unknowingly sterilised and have
only found out about the operation years after it was carried out.
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights 'Slovak doctors are
consistently derelict in their duty to provide Romani women with
information about their reproductive health status and options. These
doctors instead choose to make intimate health decisions for women without
supplying them with the information they need and are entitled to as the
primary decision makers over their bodies and future reproductive
capacity.' [3]
A number of women have sued for compensation after their unlawful
sterilisations. Last year, a Czech court ordered a hospital to pay a thirty
year old Romani woman compensation and apologise for sterilising her against
her will. The woman who had undergone the procedure ten years earlier only
learnt about it after seven years. [4]
Romani women often face challenges in accessing justice after undergoing
forced sterilisation. In 2007 a Slovakia court awarded compensation to
three Romani women who underwent involuntary sterilisations between 1999
and 2002.
Their complaints to the local prosecutor's office had been ignored and the
court ruled that this was a violation of their human rights. [5]
In 2004 the Czech Ombudsman's office conducted an investigation into the
forced sterilisation of Romani women and recommended that the Czech
government enact legislation to provide for compensation for women affected
by the sterilisations. The government however rejected this recommendation.
The Czech government has also come under criticism from the UN Committee on
the Elimination of Racial Discrimination for failing to impede the
performance of illegal sterilisations by doctors.
There are a number of human rights organisations carrying out research on
and advocacy against forced sterilisations. However the governments of
countries where they have been historically carried out have been slow in
responding to the problem even where official sterilisation policies have
ended. Women's movements need to step up their pressure to governments, the
United Nations and the European Union to ensure that this persistent abuse
of Romani women's human rights comes to an end.
_________________
Notes:
1. 'Challenging Coercive Sterilisations of Romani Women in the Czech
Republic.' http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2228
2. Ibid.
3. Center for Reproductive Health. 'Body and Soul: Forced Sterilization and
other Assaults on Roma Reproductive Freedom in Slovakia.' 2003
4. 'Historic Verdict: Court awards Compensation to a Romani Woman for
Sterilization for the First Time.' Romano Vodi, October 12, 2007.
5. World News Editor 'Slovakia Court compensates Gypsy Women.' The Earth
Times, February 5, 2007.
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