WUNRN
Compensation
Now: Campaign on Coerced Sterilisation
_____________________________________________________________
Hundreds
of Activists Support Campaign for Compensation for Coercively Sterilised Romani
Women
Romani
Women’s Rights Coalition Successfully Reaches Global Women’s Movement
15 July 2008, Budapest,
Prague, Ostrava: At the beginning of July, members of the Ostrava-based Group
of Women Harmed by Coercive Sterilisation and their advocates from European
Roma Rights Centre and Peacework Development Fund initiated a campaign to
activate the global women’s rights movement in lobbying efforts for public
recognition of coerced sterilisation and compensation for Romani survivors of
these practices in Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
The campaign was launched
around the 2008 Women’s Worlds Congress in Madrid, Spain, which brought
together thousands of women’s rights advocates from around the world, and was
supported by the Open Society Institute’s Public Health Program and the
Heinrich Böll Stiftung Warsaw.
During the Congress, supported
by simultaneous actions in
After five years of targeted
advocacy and lobbying of the governments concerned, the survivors and their
advocates turned to the global human rights movement to strengthen their
efforts to secure justice, as the governments have failed to provide either
public apologies or compensation for the harms inflicted upon Romani women.
During a panel discussion at
the Congress on the issue, the survivors informed women’s rights activists,
academics and politicians about the coercive sterilisation of Romani women in
The coerced sterilisation of
Romani women in
The survivors gained much
strength from the strong support they received from NGOs and human rights
advocates from around the world during the Congress. “Don’t give up, fight on,”
is the message that Elena Gorolova, spokesperson for the Group of Women Harmed
by Coercive Sterilisation, would like to send to all who demand redress for the
harms they have suffered.
The letters of support for the
survivors to the Czech, Hungarian and Slovak governments are available for
download on the ERRC’s website, together with comprehensive information about
the practice and the Congress. See: http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2965.
For further information, please contact: