Forced sterilisation of Romany women was isolated case- ombudsman
Brno, 6. 7. 2005, 13:04 (CTK)

The forced sterilisation of Romany women was an isolated phenomenon in the Czech Republic in the past years, Ombudsman Otakar Motejl told CTK today. A total of 78 women have turned to the Ombudsman's Office so far, complaining about forced sterilisation. "The complaints concern a 30-year-long period. The number of such cases is relatively low, given that up to thousands of sterilisations have been performed in the country every year," Motejl said.

Representatives of the League of Human Rights said that they disagreed with Motejl. They said that sterilisation of Romanies under the Communist regime was conducted on a planned basis. "Romany women were motivated by a financial contribution, which differed in individual towns. In Slovakia, these were thousands of crowns," the lawyer for the League of Human Rights Jiří Kopal told CTK today. He said that hundreds of Romany women had been persuaded to undergo sterilisation in this way. "In the Chanov neighbourhood in Most, North Bohemia, alone, one social worker persuaded one hundred of them," he stressed. Motejl admitted that the number of women who involuntarily underwent sterilisation could be higher.

"However, I don't have any evidence to prove that Romany women were subjected to systematic sterilisation in the Czech Republic," he said.

He said the reported cases spread evenly across the Czech Republic's territory.

The problem started to be discussed last autumn when the European Centre for Romany Rights published its suspicion of forced sterilisation of Romanies. The centre said that in some cases, Romany women had not consented to the operation or did so in extreme situation or under the threat of being stripped of social benefits.

Motejl received the first ten complaints from north Moravia last September. His office initiated criminal proceedings. At present, however, it wants to proceed very cautiously, as the court proceedings could cause many women to be discouraged by fears of people's reactions.

The Health Ministry has also been checking the forced sterilisation cases on Motejl's request. For this purpose, it has established an independent commission of experts.

Motejl originally planned to disclose his inquiry's results by the end of June. "However, I haven't yet received the results of the last meeting of the expert commission, which dealt with almost a half of the cases," he said today, in explaination of his failure to complete the report.

CTK