Structural antigypsyism! NGOs protest Czech Health Ministry decision not to compensate illegally sterilized women

The Health Ministry is refusing to comment on the compensation process. This latest wave of criticism against the ministry was sparked when the Human Rights League published the case of a Romani woman who was forced to undergo sterilization under threat of her children being taken into state care, a case in which the reason for her sterilization is given as her Romani origin in the records.

“The Health Ministry, given the non-public nature of administrative proceedings, does not comment on the course of any specific proceedings. The parties have many procedural rights including the right to express their perspective and file the proper measures for remedy once a decision is issued,” Ondřej Jakob, press spokesperson for the ministry, told news server Romea.cz.

RomanoNet: This is structural antigypsyism

Previously, NGOs had criticized the ministry for failing to acknowledge evidence of the sterilizations other than medical records, a practice the ministry is continuing. RomanoNet, which brings together 14 pro-Roma and Romani-run organizations, recalled that unjustified sterilizations were performed during totalitarianism on the mentally disabled, the mentally ill, and Romani women.

“Where is the leadership of this Government on this bitter past and dealing with it properly?” asked Michal Miko, director of RomanoNet. “I am outraged, this feels like when a different ministry preferred not to compensate Romani WW2 survivors at the beginning of this millennium.”

“This just reflects the position of this society, which is able to compensate the white victims of Nazism and communism, but the Romani victims receive nothing, even though they have always had to play a part in the given narrative of society,” Miko said. “The ministry’s decision-making can be considered a display of structural antigypsyism.”

Manushe: The compensation process is protracted, unfair and untransparent

The Manushe informal Romani women’s group, which operates under the wing of the Slovo 21 organization, has also criticized the decision-making by the Health Ministry. “We express our indignation over the course of the compensation for the Romani women who were forcibly sterilized during the normalization period in order to achieve the reduction of the Romani population,” says their statement sent to the news server Romea.cz.

Manushe recalls that this hidden agenda of these illegal sterilizations did not just happen during the communist era, but also during the recent history of the Czech Republic as a democracy. The group is asking that assessment of the applications no longer be done just by bureaucrats at the ministry and that a new commission begin deciding on them.

“We consider it misguided for the practice that has been established by the Health Ministry to continue, i.e., for the Legal Department to evaluate applications for compensation by the injured parties. It would be more than correct, as part of this reconciliation process, for a commission [to do this], supplemented by persons such as experts, activists, historians, academics and the victims of this terrible procedure themselves,” says the women’s group.

Manushe, which brings Romani together, says approximately 500 victims have applied to the ministry for compensation. “This procedure is protracted and quite untransparent. We are demanding redress and collaboration with civil society to resolve this unacceptable situation,” their statement reads.

The Czech Parliament passed the law to compensate illegally sterilized persons last year which authorizes a one-time payment to them of CZK 300,000 [EUR 12,000], and the President signed it into law on 22 July 2021. Victims have been able to apply for compensation since 1 January 2022.