Czech Republic – Forced Sterilization of Romani Women

Czech Republic – Human Rights & Minorities Minister Draws
Attention to Forced Sterilization of Romani Women

Most Recent
Incident Allegedly Took Place in 2007

Praha/Ostrava, 21.7.2009, 10:10, (ROMEA)

Elena
Gorolová of the Group of Women Harmed by Forced Sterilization in Ostrava told
ČTK yesterday that the most recent forced sterilization incident
concerning a Romani woman in the Czech Republic of which the Group is aware
occurred in 2007. The incident allegedly concerns a Romani mother of four
from Frýdek-Místek, who is now 40 years old.

Yesterday
Czech Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocáb also drew the
attention of the caretaker cabinet of Czech PM Jan Fischer to the issue of
forced sterilizations.

“A
woman from Frýdek-Místek was forced to submit to sterilization under pressure
from her social worker,” Gorolová said. Since the woman does not yet have
legal representation, she does not want to release her name. “She
underwent the procedure because of her enormous concern that otherwise her
children would be taken into institutional care,” Gorolová said.

The
problem has been discussed in the Czech Republic since the autumn of 2004,
when the European Roma Rights Center publicized suspicions that Romani women
were being forcibly sterilized. According to European Romani activists,
forced sterilization has also occurred in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, but
the greatest number of cases is alleged to have occurred in the Czech
Republic and Slovakia.

Czech
Human Rights Minister Kocáb is also aware of the case currently being publicized.
In the conclusions of his material on the state of the Roma community in the
Czech Republic in 2008 which the government approved yesterday, he writes:
“It is necessary to once again open up the question of the illegal
performance of sterilization on Romani women, thanks to which the Czech
Republic has become the object of international criticism.”

Gabriela
Hrabaňová of the Czech Government Council for Roma Community Affairs
said the most recent case mentioned by Gorolová has not yet made it to court.
She believes the woman harmed is preparing to sue the hospital or physician
responsible.

“There
are definitely more such women,” Gorolová claims. In her view, women do
not report cases of forced sterilization because they fear losing their
welfare benefits. They are also afraid of the negative effects of publicity.

Forced
sterilization of Romani women

13
September 2004 – The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) publishes information
on suspicions of the forced sterilization of Romani women in the Czech Republic.
ERRC says cases have come to light in which women never gave any consent to
the operation, or to which consent was given in extremely tense situations or
under the threat of social benefits being taken away. According to various
studies, Romani women were forcibly sterilized in the former Czechoslovakia
from 1959 – 1990.

17
September 2004 – ERRC and three Czech nonprofit organizations call on the
Czech government to set up a commission to investigate the forced
sterilization of Romani women. A commission to review the allegations was
later established at the Health Ministry.

1
October 2004 – Ombudsman Otakar Motejl confirms he has received initial
reports from 10 women who allegedly underwent forced operations between 1991
and 2001 in North Moravian health care facilities. Most of the cases
allegedly occurred between 1991 and 1997. Over time approximately 80 women,
most of them Romani, complain to the ombudsman.

4 March
2005 – Helena Ferenčíková, of the Vítkovice quarter of Ostrava, sues
Blahoslavená Marie Antonína Hospital in Ostrava for sterilizing her without
her consent. The hospital rejects the complaint, saying she agreed to the
operation.

8 July
2005 – Ombudsman Otakar Motejl declares that the sterilization of Romani
women during recent years in the Czech Republic has been a rare occurrence.
“I have no evidence for the claim that programmatic sterilization of Romani
women is occurring on the territory of the Czech Republic,” Motejl said.

11
November 2005 – The Regional Court in Ostrava rules that hospital management
must apologize to Helena Ferenčíková. The court rejects her claim for
financial compensation in the amount of CZK 1 million.

6
January 2006 – Motejl proposes the government consider adopting a law to
compensate women who have been forcibly sterilized. The ombudsman says that
in the past as many as 58 women were illegally sterilized. In his view racial
discrimination was not involved, but the medical records lack written
requests for the procedure and also lack confirmation that the patients were
fully apprised of the consequences of the surgery.

18
August 2006 – Elena Gorolová, a Romani woman, testifies to the UN at its
headquarters that doctors in Vítkovická Hospital sterilized her years ago.
She admits to having signed a document agreeing to the surgery but claims to
have done so without full awareness of what she was signing.

17
January 2007 – The High Court in Olomouc confirms that Helena
Ferenčíková has the right to receive an apology for her unwanted
sterilization, but once again rejects financial compensation for the
non-monetary harm caused to her. The management of the hospital apologizes to
Ferenčíková in March.

28 May
2007 – The sterilization of women without their consent is a crime, according
to the District State Attorney in Most, which is investigating the cases of
two women alleging forced sterilization in a hospital there.

12
October 2007 – The Ostrava Regional Court awards Iveta
Červěňáková compensation for her forced sterilization in the
amount of CZK 500 000, to be paid by the Ostrava City Hospital (Městská
nemocnice Ostrava). However, last November the High Court in Olomouc struck
down the compensation, saying the statute of limitations on the claim for
financial compensation had expired. The hospital only has to apologize.

2 March
2009 – The Constitutional Court rejects Červěňáková’s
complaint regarding the shelving of criminal charges against the two doctors
who performed the sterilization on her.

ROMEA, ČTK, translated by Gwendolyn
Albert
ROMEA