Czech PM condemns Health Ministry process for compensating illegally sterilized women, says officials are being too bureaucratic and unhelpful

Fiala’s statement was made for public broadcaster Czech Television’s “Reporters” program. The victims of illegal sterilizations and the nonprofit organizations aiding them have been criticizing the compensation mechanism for some time because many cases have been denied.

“I have ascertained that the bureaucrats at the Health Ministry are looking at the compensation for the women who have been affected by forced sterilization in a very unhelpful, too bureaucratic way, they want them to document matters that the women concerned objectively simply cannot,” the Prime Minister said in a text message sent to the Czech Television “Reporters” program. Of 525 women who have applied so far, just 243 have been awarded compensation, or less than half.

While bureaucrats are still handling some of the applications, more than 160 women have already been denied compensation. “They want the women to submit unambiguous evidence in the form of medical records, but many of them cannot because the documentation no longer exists,” human rights expert Monika Šimůnková explained to Czech Television.

“If medical records, as one of the main pieces of evidence, are missing, then the Health Ministry must follow the law and the administrative proceedings must unfortunately be assessed as having failed,” admitted Deputy Health Minister Josef Pavlovic (Pirates). Some women, of course, do not have these medical records because the originals have been shredded by the organizations maintaining them.

Some of the women whose applications have been denied by the ministry then turned to the courts, and the first-instance courts have agreed with them in at least two cases. “At this moment there are already at least two judgments overturning the Health Ministry’s decisions as too strict and too formal. The ministry has appealed those judgments through a cassation complaint and is awaiting the Supreme Administrative Court’s verdict,” Czech Television reports.

For example, Vlasta Holubová, who was sterilized against her will at Fifejdy Hospital in Ostrava at the age of 24 in 1988, has succeeded before the first-instance court. “They did this because they wanted to abate [the reproduction of] the population of Roma. That was a disgrace, including in the families, because among the Roma, a woman is rich because she gives birth, because she has children, and she is honored for it,” she told news server iRozhlas.cz.

Pavlovic said the ministry is researching the reasons for which some applications were rejected and is seeking amicable solutions, if possible. Illegal sterilizations on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia and Czech Republic happened in the 20th century, but cases from the 21st century are also documented.

In 2005, then-ombudsman Otakar Motejl warned of this practice and also began to speak for the first time of the possibility that the victims could be compensated. His report was followed by many years of struggle by NGOs and the victims themselves until, on 1 January 2022, the law took effect that awards a one-time payment of CZK 300,000 [EUR 12,660] to the victims of illegal sterilizations.