WUNRN
Via Romea.TV
"CHILD DENIED" - CNN TV
Documentary Film
CZECH REPUBLIC - FORCED
STERILIZATION OF ROMA WOMEN
Czech Republic - CNN Video
Coercive Sterilization of Women
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Subject: Czech Republic - Coercive Sterilization - Voice, Activism,
& Justice for Survivors
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The Prague Post
Czech
Republic +
In
an ongoing struggle for human rights, encouraging signs of empowerment
July 30th, 2008
By Gwendolyn Albert
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For
the past four years, I have been involved in helping the survivors of coercive
sterilization in the Czech Republic in their struggle to win government redress
for the harms they suffered, and prevent such violations from ever occurring in
Czech hospitals again. Together with local and international NGOs, women from
the Roma community in Ostrava in particular have persevered in this quest,
despite minimal resources and support. Their one ally is the Czech public
defender of rights (the ombudsman), whose recommendations made in 2005 remain
unimplemented by the government, despite calls by the government’s own advisory
bodies to acknowledge responsibility for the violations, apologize to the
victims and provide compensation.
A
few weeks ago, I found myself in a hotel in Vienna after a week of activism at
a large women’s rights conference in Madrid. Together with some of the Ostrava
survivors and staff of the European Roma Rights Centre, I had been collecting
signatures on postcards calling for the Czech, Hungarian and Slovak governments
to redress these violations. Curious to see the news, I turned on CNN — and
almost fell over with surprise. A promo spot announced that the documentary
Trial of a Child Denied, about the coercive sterilizations in the Czech
Republic, would be airing as part of the network’s “World’s Untold Stories”
series. Having been closely involved in assisting the producers of this film, I
was overjoyed to see their work reaching the world.
But,
for me, the most important development of the past four years has been the
changes I’ve observed in the women themselves. Despite some rough patches —
such as hostile reporting in the local press after they demonstrated outside an
Ostrava hospital in 2006 — these women have overcome the stigma that anyone
would feel discussing such intimate details of their lives. At a recent meeting
with Roma women from Slovakia who were subjected to the same abuses, the
coercive sterilization survivors from Ostrava spoke passionately about the need
to somehow reach the public through the media, not just to exchange their
experiences privately. Even after four years of near-silence from the
government, and even though they are aware that the vast majority of them will
never see their day in court, they remain fired up and eager for justice.
No
one personifies this transformation quite so clearly as Elena Gorolova, who was
sterilized without her informed consent in 1990, during the course of her
second Caesarian section delivery. While she was in the throes of labor in the
birthing room, in enormous pain and under the influence of sedatives, doctors
gave her a piece of paper and told her, “Sign this or you will die.” Trusting
them, she signed without even reading the document — as she later said, “At
that moment, I would have signed my own death warrant.”
The
“consent” obtained from Elena under these circumstances is typical of the
post-communist complaints registered with the ombudsman. She did not choose to
be sterilized — the doctors chose for her.
Four
years ago, when I first reported on these violations with Elena at the United
Nations in New York City, it was her first-ever airplane trip. So we arranged
for another woman offering testimony to accompany her, and show her the ropes
of plane travel. This summer, for our trip to Madrid, Elena not only flew from
Ostrava on her own, but was the one offering support to another first-time
flier. She’s also learned to use the Internet, e-mail and Skype. The
experiences of speaking in public and interacting with journalists have
strengthened not only Elena’s self-confidence but that of her fellow survivors,
as the Trial documentary so beautifully depicts. Elena has also recently been
appointed a civil society member of the Government Council for Roma Community
Affairs, an advisory body to the Czech government on Roma issues.
Only
a truly strong individual could have withstood the recent experience of an
online interview with readers of the Czech news server iDNES.cz, which Elena
agreed to do while we were in Madrid. The chat participants, some signing
themselves as “Doctor,” accused Elena and her fellow victims of various
underhanded motives, primarily a desire to “get rich quick” — a laughable
charge to anyone familiar with the delays of the Czech legal system, and the
traditionally low amounts of compensation awarded even in exceptional cases.
The
questioners seemed to have a hard time grasping that the throes of labor are
not the right time to ask a woman whether she wants to be sterilized. They
tried to explain to Elena that the “real problem” was her husband’s desire to
have more children, not the doctor’s sterilizing her without her informed
consent. They implied that having children was just a ploy for receiving social
support. They asked whether she smokes, what grades she got in grammar school
and why she doesn’t just adopt. They asked her why the Roma abuse welfare, why
they throw it away on gambling, drugs and alcohol — racist questions that have
nothing to do with human rights abuses.
As
was her prerogative, she did not respond to the more ignorant questions. She
answered the ones she thought worthwhile, repeating her intensely personal
story for what must be the 1,000th time in an effort to make people realize
what not only she, but many others, have been through. I find her stamina
simply incredible.
The
Czech government will take over the EU presidency in the first half of 2009,
followed by Sweden. Ten years ago, that country decided to do what the Czech
Republic has not yet done: acknowledge that the sterilization program it ran
from the early 1930s through the 1970s led to human rights abuses, and
compensate the victims of this practice. As far as I know, the recognition of
this truth has not cost the Swedish government anything in terms of
international prestige — indeed, it has raised the country’s standing among
advocates for human rights and justice.
Thanks
to the efforts of everyone who has worked on the issue of coercive
sterilization in this country since the late 1970s, the Czech government now
has a tremendous opportunity to join the ranks of those countries capable of
such self-reflection and atonement. The question is whether Czech leaders are
compassionate enough to do so.
—
The author, Gwendolyn Albert, is the Director of the Women’s Initiatives
Network of the Peacework Development Fund.
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