Human rights campaigners tell doctors: “Stop forced sterilisations of Roma women”

Human rights campaigners have called on doctors to stop the “forced sterilisation”of Roma women during an address to a medical conference in South Africa.

The Council of Europe’s team of experts used the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) conference, in Cape Town from 4-9 October, to demand from doctors higher ethical standards and a greater respect for human rights.

“The right to bodily integrity is a fundamental human right,” said Christina Zampas, a Council of Europe consultant and senior legal adviser for Europe to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

“There are doctors who are doing this who may have underlying racist attitudes. We want doctors to understand that this is illegal and discriminatory.”

Ms Zampas claimed that “a significant number” of Roma women and other minorities around the world have suffered from forced sterilisations.  She said many women are still unaware of the reason for their failure to conceive because they are denied access to their medical records.

Last April, Strasbourg’s European Court of Human Rights awarded compensation to Roma victims from Slovakia whose rights were violated for this reason.

Ms Zampas told the FIGO conference, the largest international assembly of gynaecologists and obstetricians, that women from the Czech Republic and Hungary have also been made infertile without their informed consent.

“We want doctors to become advocates for this issue,” she added. “FIGO is well respected but the current FIGO guidelines are not comprehensive enough and don’t address minority communities. We want FIGO to update its standards.”