The 20th century saw them racially targeted by NaziGermany for annihilation, and many perished during theHolocaust. In the postwar period, most Romani peoplein Europe lived under communist rule throughout theSoviet bloc. Since 1989, when most countries in that re-gion began a transition to democratic governance andmarket economies, members of the Romani minorityhave experienced a profound degradation in life expec-tancy, social status, and standard of living.
They havealso been the targets of deadly pogroms committed byneo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups, and forced evictionsinvolving police brutality throughout Europe.
Forcedsterilizations occurred during and after communist rulein the Czech Republic and Slovakia and during the pastdecade in Hungary.
In communist Czechoslovakia, Romani women wereforcibly sterilized beginning in the 1970s, a practicecontinuing after the 1989 transition to democracyand the 1993 breakup of the country into the CzechRepublic and Slovakia.
The Czech ombudsman hasestimated that, since the 1980s, as many as 90,000women may have been a
ected throughout the formerCzechoslovakia.
During communism, tubal ligation was disproportion-ately promoted to Romani women by social workers– to address what was o
cially termed their “high,unhealthy” reproduction rate compared to non-Romaniwomen – using either the promise of
nancial incen-tives or the threat of various sanctions to coerce or forcecompliance.
After the Czechoslovak Prosecutor-Gen-eral reviewed these incidents post-1989, incentive pay-ments for sterilizations were discontinued.
Subsequentinstances of forced sterilizations didn’t involve socialworkers; instead, doctors sterilized Romani womenduring C-section deliveries, often telling them that notonly the C-section but the sterilization itself had been“emergency, life-saving” measures.
In November 2009, the Czech Government expressedregret for “individual failures” in the performance of sterilizations by tubal ligation.
The practice had beendescribed as genocidal by dissidents with the Charter77 organization in communist Czechoslovakia, and fol-lowing 1989, complaints about the program were
ledwith the ombudsman (the Public Defender of Rights).After ordering a Czech Health Ministry investigation,he
critiqued the ministry for failing to conclude thatthe documented procedures violated not only humanrights, but the law. The ombudsman’s report became the basis for interna-tional human rights bodies’
recommendations that theCzech state take urgent action to redress the victims of forced sterilization. Yet criminal investigations into theseincidents were shelved and none of the perpetratorshave been subjected to civil, criminal or professionalsanction. Civil lawsuits brought by individuals have onlyrarely resulted in compensation awards due to statutesof limitations.
Romani women were also forcibly sterilized in theSlovak part of Czechoslovakia starting in the 1970s.Dissidents monitoring these incidents reported that inthe region of East Slovakia, more than 1,000 Romaniwomen and girls were sterilized during a single year inthe 1980s.
By 2002, Romani women were still beingsterilized without their informed consent, according tohuman rights activists.
The government investigatedfor “genocide” and found no evidence of it; yet inter-national observers, including the U.S. Commission onSecurity and Cooperation in Europe, called the investi-gation
awed because human rights activists and po-tential victims were threatened with criminal charges forspeaking out. In that same year, the Council of Europe’sCommissioner for Human Rights said he found the al-legations credible, recommending that the government“o
er a speedy, fair, e
cient, and just redress” to thevictims.
The Slovak Government has yet to act uponthese recommendations, though they have revised theconditions under which sterilization may be performedand instituted high fees for tubal ligations – meaningthis birth control method is now e
ectively out of reachfor low-income women who desire it in Slovakia.In 2006, the Slovak Constitutional Court ruled that thegovernment’s report had not adequately clari
ed thefacts and ordered the investigation into forced steriliza-tion re-opened. However, in 2007, after interrogatingthe alleged perpetrators and victims, the Slovak Pros-ecutor announced no crime had been committed orrights violated, and discontinued the proceedings. Var-ious international human rights bodies are still callingon the government to investigate the allegations, com-pensate the victims, and punish the perpetrators. A caseis also currently pending before the European Court forHuman Rights.
Compared to the Czech and Slovak examples, farfewer forced sterilizations of Romani women have