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October 12th, 2008

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Bittersweet victory

Landmark case opens a new chapter in sterilization controversy

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
October 24th, 2007 issue

Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST

Sterilized Women's Association director Elena Gorolová says she felt drained by years of lobbying to change patient consent laws. enlarge

Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST

Life Together director Kumar Vishwanathan says Communist society viewed coercive sterilization of Romany women "a form of eugenics." enlarge

OSTRAVA, North Moravia

On the first Friday of each month, ten Romany mothers congregate in the modest offices of Vzájemné soužití (Life Together), an Ostrava civic organization providing aid to low-income families.

Aside from their ethnicity, the women are unified by a single experience: that of being sterilized against their will by hospital staff after giving birth.

Since 2004, the group Sterilized Women’s Association (SSŽ) has worked with lawyers and human rights groups to seek reparations for what they view as a “violation of their personal rights.”

After three years of working to raise public awareness of the illegal sterilization of women in the Czech Republic, the women began to grow discouraged.

“I began to feel like we weren’t getting anywhere, that I was sharing my painful personal story with the world for nothing,” says SSŽ director Elena Gorolová. “The going was slow, and we were all feeling really drained.”

The mood changed with the Oct. 12 decision of the Regional Court in Ostrava, which ordered the City Hospital in Ostrava to pay 30-year-old Iveta Červeňáková 500,000 Kč ($26,000) as reimbursement for sterilizing her against her will in 1997.

The second in a set of three civil suits launched by SSŽ women against regional hospitals, Červeňáková’s case represents the first verdict in which a coercively sterilized woman was awarded financial compensation by Czech courts.

“It gave us strength,” says Červeňáková, who was 19 years old at the time of her sterilization. “I was glad that the judge was able to understand my situation.”

Light in the darkness

A mother of two, Červeňáková underwent the sterilization procedure after giving birth via Cesarean section to her second child. Shortly before the delivery, Červeňáková says she signed a form approving the sterilization while under the influence of anesthetic.

“I spent the whole night waiting for the C-section, but they did not give me the form until right before the operation,” she says. “At the time, I had no idea what sterilization meant.”

For months after the procedure, Červeňáková says she lived under the impression that she had been given an Intra-Uterine Device (IUD), a temporary form of birth control. In 1998, Červeňáková started planning for another child, and asked her doctor to remove the IUD.

“That’s when the doctor said that I would never be able to have children again,” she says. “It was only then that I learned what sterilization meant.”

Despite this realization, Červeňáková refused to give up. Over the past nine years, she has undergone three unsuccessful in-vitro fertilizations. “To undergo that kind of ordeal three times, and to no avail — you cannot imagine what it’s like,” she says.

If she is compensated by the hospital, Červeňáková says she will use the money to pay for one last attempt at in-vitro fertilization.

According to Červeňáková’s lawyer, Michaela Kopalová of the Human Rights League, the court’s ruling in her client’s favor gives hope to scores of women with similar experiences, which are not uncommon here. “There are about 90 reported cases of women who were sterilized without their informed consent,” she says.

Although a dearth of evidence and legal funds prevents a majority of these women from filing similar lawsuits, Kopalová says the decision is a positive development for women like Gorolová, whose 1990 sterilization has led her to lobby for a change in government legislation regarding patients’ informed consent to medical procedures.

Gorolová, who was coercively sterilized at 21 while struggling with the complicated birth of her second son in an Ostrava hospital, says she and other women were purposely under-informed about their sterilization by hospital staff.

Primed for a Cesarean section, Gorolová says she was wheeled off to surgery and asked to fill out two forms: one determining the name of the baby, another consenting to sterilization, a term she says she’d never heard of.

“You’re given sedatives, and you’re in so much pain that you can’t think,” she says. “At that moment, I would have signed anything they gave me.”

"Random and rare"

A common practice during communism, the coercive sterilization of Romany women first gained international attention in 1978, when it was publicized in the Charter 77, a Czechoslovak dissident petition criticizing the totalitarian regime. “In some hospitals, the sterilization of Romany women is a planned administrative practice,” the petition states. “An employee’s level of success is based on how many Romany women he convinces to concede to sterilization.”

Life Together director Kumar Vishwanathan says communist-era society viewed the sterilization of Romany women as “a form of eugenics.”

“The state thought it was in its interest to control the Romany population, which was viewed as [a social burden],” he says.

Pressured by international human rights groups, the Czech government stopped condoning the practice, which violated both national and EU laws, shortly after the 1989 revolution. However, Vishwanathan says this did not eradicate the practice.

In 2004, 10 Romany women who claimed they were illegally sterilized between 1991 and 2001 in North Moravian hospitals filed a joint complaint to national ombudsman Otakar Motejl. By 2005, more than 80 Romany women who claimed they were sterilized against their will filed complaints with Motejl. In his final report, Motejl concluded that cases of coercive sterilization after 1991 were random and rare, and did not specifically target Romany women.

Motejl’s report led to an independent investigation by a special Health Ministry commission, which concluded last month. While the ministry admits that hospitals failed to obtain informed consent in several cases, “by no means were the sterilizations a racial or nationalistic politic,” the committee’s final report states.

The Health Ministry commission’s findings are in line with a 1972 law that allows doctors to sterilize consenting women whose future pregnancies are considered high-risk. It is for these reasons that Červeňáková was sterilized, says Ostrava City Hospital spokeswoman Marie Dlabalová.

“Ms. Červeňáková was undergoing her second Cesarean birth, which is why the sterilization was recommended to her,” Marie Dlabalová says. “The hospital had obtained her written consent prior to the sterilization, which is why we were very surprised by the court’s decision.” The hospital plans to fight the Regional Court decision in the Court of Appeals.

Regardless of the final outcome of Červeňáková’s case, Kopalová says the recent court ruling helped resolve a “legal vacuum” that prevented coercively sterilized women from obtaining financial compensation. However, Kopalová says the decision will not lead to a rise in civil lawsuits filed against hospitals by sterilized women. “Czech law does not mandate access to free legal representation in civil trials,” she says. “Since most of these women cannot afford a lawyer, it puts them at a great disadvantage.”

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com

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