Forcibly sterilized women write to the Czech Health Ministry: The compensation system needs to be immediately changed!
A group of women who have been illegally sterilized have sent an open letter to Czech Health Minister Vlastimil Válek expressing their disappointment over the course of the compensation procedure to date which is taking too long in some cases and in others has resulted in applications being rejected because of insufficient medical records. The women are demanding the fair, transparent handling of all such applications and are referencing decisions from the Czech Supreme Administrative Court which have criticized the ministry's approach toward awarding compensation so far.
The letter is signed by 15 women who have been fighting for justice since 2003, reminding the minister that the first official apology for their illegal sterilizations did not happen until 2009, expressed by then-Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer and Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Michael Kocáb. Their many years of effort eventually led to the adoption of Act no. 297/2021, Coll., which makes it possible for victims to apply for one-time compensation in the amount of CZK 300,000 [EUR 12,000].
The victims have been able to apply for compensation since last year. They will only be able to do so until the end of this year. Those who were sterilized between 1 July 1966 and 31 March 2012 without freely deciding to undergo the procedure and without being informed as to its impact on them should be entitled to compensation.
According to data from August 2024, the Health Ministry has awarded compensation to 629 women since the procedure started on 1 January 2022. They have received a total of 1,296 applications, 616 of which still await a decision. According to the available data, the ministry has paid more than CZK 188 million [EUR 7.5 million] in compensation. However, some women are warning that their applications were rejected because of insufficient medical records, which they consider unfair.
“Some of us were awarded compensation, some of us are still waiting for the results, some of us unfortunately were rejected, but some of us never even lived to see that possibility. Many of us encountered the problem that our original medical records from the time when we were sterilized no longer exist. Our applications were therefore rejected. Even though the law allows other evidence to be submitted, in practice the Czech Health Ministry has not been taking advantage of that option,” the women and their supporters state in the letter, which news server Romea.cz is publishing in full translation below.
The signatories to the letter recall a recent Czech Supreme Administrative Court decision finding that the burden of proof cannot rest solely on the victims, especially in cases where their historical records no longer exist.
“If the claim of the applicant is ‘plausible’ (credible), defensible, and supported by indicators which, taken together, cannot admit of any rational explanation other than that an illegal sterilization probably did happen, then the burden of proof shifts to the administrative bodies, which must then prove that the alleged facts could not have happened,” the letter states.
The women are asking Czech Health Minister Válek to immediately introduce changes to the compensation process and to produce clear instructions for the applicants as to how they should proceed when applying for compensation and supplying additional evidence.
Romani organizations and human rights organizations have been complaining that the ministry is not upholding the legally-established timeframe for deciding on the applications and not acknowledging any evidence other than original medical records. They have been pointing out that over the intervening decades, such records were either destroyed prematurely, lost, or officially shredded, and that the law also allows for other evidence of these claims. As early as the summer of 2022, these organizations called for the compensation process to be transformed. The Czech Government Council for Romani Minority Affairs has also repeatedly discussed the compensation process and its problems. Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Klára Šimáčková Laurenčíková and Czech Government Commissioner for Roma Minority Affairs Lucie Fuková have already previously mentioned their efforts to get the ministry to recognize sworn statements or testimonies as part of the evidence for compensation claims.
The suspicions that primarily Romani women were being forcibly sterilized in the Czech Republic were raised for the first time in the 21st century by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in 2004. Dozens of women then applied to the ombudsman and several also turned to the courts. The Czech Government Committee against Torture proposed introducing compensation in 2006. In 2009 the cabinet expressed regret for the illegal surgeries.
According to the current law, victims can apply for compensation through the end of this year only.
Open letter to prof. MUDr. Vlastimil Válek, CSc., MBA, EBIR, Minister of Health of the Czech Republic
Dear Mr. Minister,
We are writing this open letter to you on behalf of the women who have long been fighting for justice in the matter of their illegal sterilizations. We are the women who raised the issue of illegal sterilizations in 2003, and that entire time we have been demonstrably striving for justice and for the country to come to terms with this heavy question from the past. Some of those who were involved at the very beginning of this journey did not live long enough to achieve redress and unfortunately are no longer with us.
In 2005, Czech Public Defender of Rights JUDr. Otakar Motejl became the first representative of a Czech state institution to agree that these violations of our bodily integrity and fertility were illegal and of a eugenic nature. In 2009, we were invited to the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic, where Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer and Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Michael Kocáb apologized publicly for these unlawful violations. After many years of cooperation and effort, and with the support of both non-governmental organizations and international institutions (the Council of Europe, UN treaty oversight bodies, the OSCE), we achieved the fact that in 2021 a law was adopted to award eligibility for a one-time payment to persons who had been sterilized unlawfully, Act. no 297/2021, Coll., with great support in the lower house across the political spectrum (just one vote was cast against the law). We are grateful to all the lawmakers who drafted and adopted this law and to all figures who supported it. We consider this law an important, meaningful, symbolic step toward coming to terms with the past and strengthening awareness of the fact that the integrity of women’s persons cannot be violated without their informed consent and respect for their will. This law is of great value for preventing such practices in the future. We are proud that this law can be a model for other countries where the illegal sterilizations of women are still happening in practice.
We women have taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by this law to apply for compensation from the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic. Some of us were awarded compensation, some of us are still waiting for a decision, some of us unfortunately were rejected, but some of us did not live long enough to learn the outcome of our cases. Many of us encountered the problem that our original medical records from the time when we were sterilized no longer exist. Our applications were therefore rejected. Even though the law allows other evidence to be submitted, in practice the Czech Health Ministry has not been taking advantage of that option.
It took 2.5 years since the compensation law took effect for the ministry’s cassation complaint against the application of Mrs. V. H. (one of the longstanding members of the Group of Women Harmed by Forced Sterilization) to be rejected by the Supreme Administrative Court. That court has issued a key decision that the burden of proof in these cases cannot lie solely with the victims, especially in historical cases where original medical records frequently no longer exist. If the claim of the applicant is ‘plausible’ (credible), defensible, and supported by indicators which, taken together, cannot admit of any rational explanation other than that an illegal sterilization probably did happen, then the burden of proof shifts to the administrative bodies, which must then prove that the alleged facts could not have happened. In its rejection of yet another cassation complaint from the ministry in July 2024, the Supreme Administrative Court defined instructions for the ministry to follow in cases where original medical records no longer exist, including everything that has to be considered, and ruled that if the ministry does not succeed in refuting the applicant’s claims, then it must award her compensation.
On the basis of these Supreme Administrative Court decisions we are asking that you immediately introduce changes to the compensation process and provide transparent instructions to the applicants as to how we should file our requests or provide additional evidence for our claims.
