16/09/2011 Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Strasbourg, 16.09.2011 - "As stereotypes and prejudices against all that is different persist, as well as a desire to control these differences, or at least to control their propagation and reproduction, forced sterilisation and castration continue to this day in our member states," warned Liliane Maury Pasquier (Switzerland, SOC), Chair of the Social Affairs Committee, on the occasion of a hearing on this subject. The practice is reported to be directed mainly against Roma women, convicted sex offenders and transgender persons.
Participants unanimously condemned this practice as a serious violation of human rights and human dignity, and expressed their wish to see it abolished once and for all. "It is unacceptable in Council of Europe member states, all of which have signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights," emphasised Mrs Maury Pasquier.
She pointed out that even those countries which have abolished the practice sometimes find it difficult to acknowledge that they have committed serious violations of human rights. Very large numbers of victims are still awaiting compensation or apologies from the authorities. All too often prosecution is unsuccessful, on various pretexts.
"In the late 19th century, this practice was directed against people who were sick, the disabled, offenders, minorities, those on the fringes of society. It culminated in the Nazis' mass forced sterilisations and castrations of persons deemed to be ‘inferior’", said Mrs Maury Pasquier.
The experts referred, among others, to the cases of Roma women, of the transgender persons for whom this practice is a precondition for legal recognition of the gender of their choice, although it has now been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, and of convicted sex offenders.
Among the experts’ recommendations were that:
- sterilisation should be considered to be irreversible and patients so informed;
- consent to sterilisation should never be a condition of access to medical care, to HIV/AIDS treatment, to a natural or Caesarian birth, to an abortion or to the benefits linked to sickness insurance, to social assistance, to employment or to release from an establishment;
- sterilisation in order to prevent future pregnancies cannot be ethically justified on grounds of medical emergency;
- Article 23, paragraph 1 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires states to ensure that persons with disabilities, including children, retain their fertility on an equal basis with others.
Bernardette Gächter, a Swiss survivor of forced sterilisation, rounded off the hearing with her personal account: "I now know that I am just one of thousands of victims. I know how much energy is needed to survive. I have been unable to start a family, to have a child, although this is what I wanted more than anything else. Seeing mothers with their children caused me pain. And today, it still hurts a great deal when I see grandmothers with their grandchildren. No one can give back to me what was taken away at the time. The operation was irreversible! I had to learn to live with all that. I had to come to terms with the thought that I have been a victim of an incredible injustice causing severe physical injuries."