Rights groups' anger at forced sterilisation of gypsy women

Published on Friday 27 November 2009 21:39

HUMAN rights groups have claimed gypsy women in the Czech Republic are still subject to forced or coerced sterilisation in a practice echoing a brutal policy of communist Czechoslovakia aimed at limiting the number of the country's largest ethnic minority.

In one area of the country alone, researchers found 20 women had been sterilised last year. However, the true figure is likely to be much higher especially as gypsies, or Roma as they are known, often live on the margins of society, human rights groups argue.

"For a while, we thought the practice had finished," Ostalinda Maya, from the Budapest-based Roma Rights Centre, said. "But this year, an activist did some research and she found some very recent cases."

The practice of forcing or coercing Roma women to undergo sterilisation cast a shadow over a recent statement by Jan Fischer, the Czech prime minister, express-ing regret over a policy enforced in communist Czechoslovakia aimed at restricting the unwanted growth of Roma families.

Under the programme, women were sometimes sterilised without their consent during Caesarean sections, offered bribes to undergo the operation, or threatened with some form of punishment by the social services if they refused to do so.

But human rights groups claim that, although the programme was abandoned, the underlying racial prejudice against Roma in the Czech Republic that created it continues.

"The policy came from the stereotype that Roma women have too many children; it was racial discrimination," Ms Maya said.

"Even though this policy was stopped, these attitudes still exist in Czech society and I think that is why forced sterilisation has continued."

Gwendolyn Albert, a human rights activist working with Roma women in the Czech Republic, said: "It is very disturbing that there are still vestiges of the totalitarian system existing in this country when it comes to how it treats this minority."

Helena Ferjencikova, a Roma woman sterilised in 2001 during a Caesarean section, said she gave her consent only because of the agony of childbirth.

"I was in such pain that I just signed it. Who wouldn't?" she said. "Nobody explained to me, nobody told me that I'd never be able to have children again."

The Czech government has stressed that any form of forced or coerced sterilisation is against the law and claims that, when it has occurred, it has been due to mistakes made by doctors.

Roma activists have called for the government to grant compensation to the victims of unwanted sterilisation, but so far ministers have resisted, blaming budgetary constraints imposed by the financial crisis.