Czech hospital has to compensate Gypsy woman for coercive sterilization, court rules

The Associated Press
Friday, October 12, 2007

PRAGUE, Czech Republic: A Czech court ruled Friday that a hospital must pay 500,000 koruna (€18,200; US$25,800) in compensation for sterilizing a Gypsy woman 10 years ago without her consent, a lawyer for the woman said.

Complaints about the practice have been heard many times. But the lawyer, Michaela Kopalova, said this marked the first time a Gypsy woman in the Czech Republic had been compensated for such a claim.

The court in the northeastern city of Ostrava also ordered Ostrava's Municipal hospital to apologize to Iveta Cervenakova for violating her rights by sterilizing her in 1997, Kopalova said.

Cervenakova, 31, was sterilized after giving birth to her second daughter by Caesarean section. Kopalova also represents two other Gypsy women who are seeking damages from hospitals, claiming to have been illegally sterilized.

(MORE)

Gypsy Accusation Towards Czechs’ and Slovaks’ Forced Sterilisations

80 ethnic Roma women are claiming that they were conned into sterilisation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. While some were forced, others were offered financial incentives to get sterilised in hopes of reducing the fertile Roma population.

One woman, Elena Gorolova (37) explained how she joked with the doctor saying they can keep her baby boy at hospital because she wanted a baby girl and how he replied that she better take it because she has been sterilised at the age of 21.

While it is believed that the practice ended in 1990 after the end of communist Czechoslovakia, human rights groups say it happened as recent as 2003. According to the Czech embassy in London, sterilisation was not targeted at specific ethnic groups.


Source: news.bbc.co.uk