"Sterilise cucumbers not women" placard at a Roma women's protest. Photo used with permission of authors. All rights reserved.
“After ten days in hospital, I was given some forms and told that I should go to see a social worker with them in order to get some money. I had no idea what the money was for, I thought it was for having my stitches done twice, but the social worker told me that I was sterilised. I didn’t know what it meant so she explained it to me, and also that they are not giving money for it anymore. I had to take it normally, what other option did I have? I was totally dumbfounded, that they’ve done that [...] Without saying a word.”
In 1992, twenty-six-year-old Jana from the Czech city of Ostrava, was told two days after her C-section delivery that she needed another surgery because she had “loose stitches which needed to be fixed”. Without her knowledge or consent, she was sterilised during this procedure.
