WUNRN
CZECH REPUBLIC - ROMA WOMEN - FORCED
STERILIZATIONS
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Council of Europe - Commissioner for
Human Rights Thomas
Hammarberg:
Czech
Republic: Inclusion of Roma Should Be a Political Priority - 3/3/11
........The
Commissioner welcomes the Czech government’s expression of regret in November
2009 for the unlawful sterilisations of women, mainly Roma, and calls for
further action to provide adequate reparation to the victims of these gross
human rights violations. “It is particularly unfair that women affected by this
practice are presently without an effective remedy to obtain reparation,
including compensation, a situation that should be urgently remedied in line
with international standards”........
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Czech Republic - Roma Women Harmed by Forced
Sterilization Welcome Council of
Europe Statement
Ostrava, 18.3.2011 (ROMEA)
The
following is a press release from the Group of Women Harmed by Forced
Sterilization:
On 3 March
2011, the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg,
Thomas Hammarberg, issued a report on the state of human rights in the Czech
Republic. Commissioner Hammarberg called the state policy with respect to
sterilizations until 1991 a gross systemic violation of human rights and called
on the Czech Government to thoroughly investigate and redress it. He expressed
the opinion that women who have been sterilized without their informed consent
effectively have no option to sue for compensation in the Czech Republic.
Commissioner
Hammarberg proposes the Czech Republic re-evaluate the length of the statute of
limitations on these cases such that the time bar will be calculated not from
the time of the surgery, but from the time when the women fully realized the
ramifications of their sterilization. As a guideline for their compensation he
proposes the Government refer to a 2005 UN document on Basic Principles and
Recommendations for Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights as well as to
compensation mechanisms for the victims of forced sterilization in other
countries.
The Ostrava
Group of Women Harmed by Forced Sterilization welcomes Commissioner
Hammarberg's report and humbly expresses its enthusiasm for it. The Group calls
on the Czech Government to take steps to truly compensate the forced
sterilization of women as per Commissioner Hammarberg's recommendations. Forced
sterilization has deeply and permanently interfered with our family lives, our
motherhood, our psyches, our health, our emotions and our womanhood.