Roma Sterilization in East Europe
Some Gypsy women in Czech Republic have come out against forced sterilizations.
Roma have long been an ostracized group in Eastern Europe. Women, sterilized without their knowledge or consent, are examples of Roma discrimination.
The Roma of Eastern Europe have comparitively high fertility rates, illiteracy rates, poverty rates, and unemployment rates in Eastern Europe. Their culture and the mainstream culture have long clashed, and the unwillingness of traditional Eastern European society to shake off some of its prejudices has only perpetuated Roma disadvantage.
Sterilization occurred under Soviet rule, and it continues today, though doctors in some Eastern European nations - and Eastern European governments - refuse to substantiate the claims by Roma women that they have been coercively sterilized. However, the amount of discrimination that has been tolerated by governments makes the Roma women's story believable - cases of segregated schools, housing discrimination, and other widespread examples of abuse are not uncommon, even today.
Throughout Eastern Europe, Roma babies are left in hospitals as orphans - sometimes because their mothers do not have the financial means to care for their children. One country, Romania, has been given the task by the EU to solve its orphan problem without allowing international adoption. A great many of those babies are Roma orphans,who may be unwanted by parents who have the means and desire to adopt.
Roma culture celebrates children, and sterilization may be especially shameful for women who are expected to prolifically reproduce. While, given the average Roma family's economic means, some Eastern Europeans feel that the Roma might be better off having fewer children, education, integration, and understanding will go farther to create a productive, prosperous Roma society than will the elimination of a basic human right.
