Czech Human Rights Council Recommended Compensation for Coercive Sterilisation

20 November 2007

According to the Czech News Agency (CTK) of 29 May 2007, the Czech Council for Human Rights put forth a plan that would compensate dozens of victims of forced sterilization with up to 200,000 Czech crowns (approximately 7,480 EUR) each. The victims, most of whom are Romani, were sterilised without adequate information about the procedure or in some cases against their will. The compensation would extend to cases from 1966-1991.

However, CTK reported, the Government Council chairman Jan Litomisky claimed that the proposal had little chance of being ratified, because of fears that it would set a precedent enabling large numbers of unverifiable claims of medical malpractice. If the proposal fails to be ratified, this would further exacerbate the extreme violations these women had experienced and would mean that there would be no justice for the victims of sterilization procedures during the disputed period.

(CTK)