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Earlier this month, women who were involuntarily sterilized in the Czech region finally won the battle for compensation.
On August 3, President Milos Zeman signed a bill that would allow hundreds of victims to receive 300,000 CZK (13,890 USD) each.
During the communist rule of former Czechoslovakia, beginning in the 1960s, as part of national policy, women from low socioeconomic backgrounds and many Roma communities were sterilized. Activists said that the policy ended in the early 1990s, but continued informally into the 2000s.
The last known case was in 2010.
It is not clear how many women have been affected. It is estimated that there are thousands of people, many of whom have died.
Radka Hancilova is one of the few non-Roma women who have been forcibly sterilized after the end of the policy.
At the age of 20, she underwent sterilization during a caesarean section in 1994. She only signed a consent form after the operation, when she was still in pain and did not know what she was signing.
She underwent hormone therapy for several years and spent 200,000 CZK ($9,120) on the IVF procedure.
“The money we get will not compensate for my infertility, but it is better than nothing,” Hansilova told Al Jazeera by phone.
Most sterilizations are irreversible; Hansilova eventually had a daughter through IVF.
She said: “The compensation is not revolutionary, but they will compensate for my IVF procedure.” “This can happen to anyone. The doctor who disinfected me knew he could escape, and he did it.”
In the next few years, she tried to contact the doctor but did not get a response.
“He refused to talk to me. He probably knew what he was doing was illegal.”
Another victim, Sarka Grundzova, was sterilized in 1987 under the official eugenics policy of the Communist government. Then, women who agree to the procedure receive financial and material rewards.
Others were manipulated to sign consent forms for sterilization operations, which are usually performed during childbirth.
Grundzova said: “Doctors describe it as some form of advanced contraception.” “But no one told me it would be permanent, and I would never have children again.”
When she realized that she could no longer have children, she felt “betrayed, worthless and frustrated.”
“I started menopause at the age of 35. I weighed 47 kg, my thyroid stopped working, and I started to suffer from severe hormonal imbalances,” she said.
But according to the Czech Human Rights Commissioner Helena Valkova, Grundzova is not entitled to compensation because she was sterilized on the Slovak side of the former Czechoslovakia.
“Only people who have been sterilized in the Czech Republic can apply for compensation,” Valkova said.
She said that victims of sterilization on the Slovak side are not covered by the bill and they will have to wait for Slovakia to take similar actions.
Since the Czech Republic passed the law, the European Commission on Human Rights has urged the Slovak government to resolve the issue.
In an open letter to the President of Slovakia Zuzana Čaputová, Grundzova wrote: “I think this is unfair. We used to be a country in Czechoslovakia. This is why I ask you to help me.”
Jonathan Lee of the European Roma Rights Center said that compensation is a key step in any reconciliation process.
“This is not just an apology; it is a testament to the pain and trauma these people have experienced,” he said. “This is not just a question of money. Societies of all countries must watch the country admit its mistakes.”
However, since these measures only guarantee compensation for women who were sterilized before 2012, Li worries that women who do not fall into this category will continue to face problems.
“The burden of proof will be borne by them, and they will have to provide a lot of evidence compared with the evidence that is part of the compensation mechanism,” he said.
Nevertheless, Li believes that the Czech bill sends an important message to other countries, which have not yet compensated for illegally sterilized women.
“This is not just a Czech problem; it is a eugenics problem,” he told Al Jazeera.
Other countries such as Sweden and Germany have also passed laws promoting forced sterilization in an attempt to reduce the Roma population.
In the Czech Republic, victims who can prove that they had undergone sterilization operations without informed consent between 1966 and 2012 can apply for compensation from January 2022.
“The committee appointed by the Czech Ministry of Health will have up to 60 days to evaluate each application,” Valkova said.
“The state has allocated 120,000 million Czech crowns (9,257,000 USD) to repay the approximately 400 forced sterilization survivors who are still alive today,” Valkova said. “I thank everyone who made this happen, and I hope we can now end this chapter of history.”
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