29.10.2014 Czech Republic: Rroma subjected to forced sterilisation shall receive compensation

RFI (2014) reports on the efforts of the Czech government to compensate financially some 90,000 Rroma women, who were forcibly sterilised between 1971 and 1989. The planned compensation payments, for which the legal framework is created at the moment, were considered only after massive criticism by the United Nations. Although in 2009, the government apologized for the caused suffering, until now, the victims had to individually sue the various hospitals where the sterilisations were performed: “Between 1971 and 1989, up to 90 thousand Roma women in former Czechoslovakia were sterilised. The government has apologised, but until this point has offered little else. […] The Czech Republic’s Human Rights Minister Jiri Dienstbier said that the necessary legislation should be completed by the end of this year. Forced sterilisation during this period has also been documented in what is now Slovakia, but that government has made no similar move to provide compensation. RFI’s Anne-Marie Bissada spoke with Katerina Cervena, a lawyer and project leader with the Czech League for Human Rights, who said that Czech courts never criminalised forced sterilisation because the police had been involved, and that some cases of sterilisation may have occurred as late as 2007.” Already under the Habsburgs, in particular under empress Maria Theresa, Rroma severely suffered under repressive measures. Maria Theresa enacted a strict program of forced assimilation that prohibited the Rroma to speak their language, to wear their traditional dresses and even to practice their traditional occupations. At the height of the repression, she even prohibited the Rroma to marry among themselves and children over five years were brought into non-Rroma families.