Most Czech Govt ministers agree wrongfully sterilized women should be compensated

The Czech Government Human Rights Council has recommended the cabinet compensate women who were wrongly sterilized between 1971 and 1991 irrespective of the statute of limitations on the incidents. Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Monika Šimůnková says the Government should discuss the matter in the coming months and a draft “compensation mechanism” should be on the table by the end of 2013. According to today’s edition of Lidové noviny (LN), most ministers in the Government support compensation. Dozens of women, most of them Romani, have turned to the ombudsman over the sterilizations in the past, and some have also sued in court.

According to the Council’s recommendation, all women who have ever been wrongfully sterilized should be compensated. Even women who were entitled to be rewarded monetarily for undergoing sterilization according to previously applicable regulations will be considered eligible. Until 1991, a decree was in effect that made it possible to pay women CZK 10 000 for terminating their fertility. According to a report issued by the ombudsman several years ago, social workers convinced Romani women not to have more children by offering them the payment. The future compensation would also be offered to women who have been unable to sue over what happened to them because of statutes of limitations.

The cabinet reviewed the forced sterilization of women last week when it discussed the concluding recommendations of the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. That body has recommended the Czech Republic show its good will by compensating Romani women who were coercively or forcibly sterilized. “This mutilation was performed in state institutions, so the state is obliged to pay compensation,” Czech Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09) told LN.

Other ministers have also expressed agreement with that position. However, they say that whether the proposal is approved by the Government will depend on the precise form of the compensation system. “The procedure for proving that the sterilization was against the will of the woman requesting compensation must be clearly established,” Czech Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra (ODS) told the daily. “I support compensation, but there is a need to discuss the precise amount on the basis of arguments made by experts,” Czech Labor Minister Jaromír Drábek (TOP 09) told LN.

Šimůnková said she proposed to the cabinet that it give ministries with various tasks with respect to the compensation. The Czech Justice Ministry is to develop an analysis to review existing statutes of limitations. The Czech Finance, Health and Labor Ministers, together with the Human Rights Commissioner, would have until the end of next year to propose how the compensation is to be undertaken. The head of the Health Ministry would have until the end of this June to make sure all medical records for female sterilization from 1971 are preserved. By the end of September the ministry would also develop instructions as to how doctors are to proceed with sterilizations in future.

Suspicions of the forced sterilization of primarily Romani women were published in 2004 by the European Roma Rights Centre. The ERRC claimed there were cases in the Czech Republic wherein Romani women never consented to the operations or where they gave consent in extreme situations or under the threat that their welfare would be taken away. Compensation was proposed in the past by the late ombudsman Otakar Motejl, to whom approximately 80 mainly Romani women had turned with their complaints by the end of 2005. Statistics on the number of women who were harmed by such interventions do not exist in the Czech Republic.

The Czech Government Human Rights Council met last week. Its recommendations were based on a motion submitted by its Committee against Torture.