Coercive sterilisation: Prague court sets precedent by overturning Health Ministry’s rejection of compensation
06 March 2025
“This case is a landmark - for the first time ever, compensation should be awarded based on the testimony of a family member”, declared the League of Human Rights (LLP), after its court victory over the Czech Health Ministry in Romani sterilisation case.
As reported by Romea.cz, the Prague Municipal Court ruled that compensation for forced sterilisation can be awarded on the basis of a family member's testimony. The court overturned the rejection of a compensation claim by the Czech Health Ministry of a Romani woman, who was sterilised without informed consent back in 1981. According to the League of Human Rights (LLP), which represented the applicant during the compensation proceedings, this decision sets a fundamental precedent which could impact dozens of cases.
In a press release following the verdict, LLP lawyer Anna Indra Štefanides stated: “With this judgment, the court once again emphasized that the testimony of family members cannot be automatically rejected just because they are not independent third parties. The Ministry has long set unfulfillable requirements for the burden of proof of victims of illegal sterilizations, which this judgment clearly rejected. In addition, it brings another important clue - it specifies what a defensible claim means and what indications need to be taken into account."
According to the LLP, the Ministry has so far systematically rejected family members as witnesses, arguing that they were biased and demanding testimony practically “directly from the operating room”. In this case, however, the court clearly stated that the statement of the plaintiff’s sister was credible and should have been assessed by the Ministry as important evidence. The LLP claimed that the Ministry focused on irrelevant details in its assessment of the testimony and tried to discredit it. Tried but failed: “the court opposed this approach and emphasized that in cases where medical documentation is missing, other means of evidence should be used, including witness statements from close relatives.”
As recounted by Romea.cz, the plaintiff described how in 1981, pregnant with her sixth child, her doctor pressured and eventually persuaded her to terminate the pregnancy. Immediately prior to the procedure, physicians suggested she also undergo sterilisation. According to her testimony, “They just told me it was birth control,” nobody explained to her what sterilisation actually meant, and nobody warned her that it was irreversible. By the time she understood that she would never be able to conceive again, it was too late:
“I found out that it meant cutting my fallopian tubes and tying them off. When I realized this, I felt cheated and worthless. I believe they sterilised me mainly because I am a Romani woman, and that greatly pains me.”
LLP lawyer Anna Indra Štefanides, described the decision as crucial “because it finally gives clear instructions on how to proceed in the case of witness statements and how to evaluate them.” Now, the case goes back to the Minister of Health for a new assessment and they will have to take into account the court's legal opinion and make a decision based on a full acceptance that the plaintiff has presented credible evidence of illegal sterilisation.
Historical context and the long battle for redress
According to the court, the ministry totally omitted from its decision any reference to the historical context of the forced sterilisations of Romani women from its decision, and insisted that this aspect must be taken into consideration when assessing requests for compensation.
The practice of coercive sterilisation that targeted Romani women was legally sanctioned by a 1971 decree in communist Czechoslovakia which gave public authorities free rein to systematically sterilise women without full and informed consent as a means of birth control. This was boosted in 1979 by a government program of financial incentives for Romani women, motivated by the need “to control the highly unhealthy Roma population through family planning and contraception.”
The Sterilisation Directive was abolished in 1993, but the practice of sterilising Romani women without their consent continued throughout the 1990s and the 2000s, with the last known case occurring as recently as 2007.
In 2004, the European Roma Rights Centre came forward with suspicions that the forced sterilizations of Romani women in particular were still transpiring. Dozens of women then turned to the Public Defender of Rights (the ombudsman) and some also sued in court. As documented by the ERRC, the sterilization procedure was often performed at the same time as caesarean sections or women were presented with consent forms when in great pain or distress during labour or delivery. However, there were also cases when Romani women underwent the procedure after threats to institutionalize their children or withdraw welfare benefits.
In 2022, after many years of campaigning and advocacy by NGOs and the women themselves, a compensation law came into effect that awarded victims of coercive sterilisation a one-time payment of CZK 300,000 (€12,000) from the state.
In 2023, Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, met with Romani victims of forced sterilisation and called for a quick resolution to all the ongoing problems many faced in accessing the compensation mechanism. These concerns included the mechanism’s almost exclusive reliance on medical records to assess the eligibility of applicants for compensation, and the difficulties in accessing such files when so many had been shredded, destroyed by flood or fire, or simply lost. The Commissioner reminded authorities of of the importance in tackling this historical injustice, and “to now get this right to ensure victims are not further humiliated and traumatised.”
On 4 December 2024, a bill was submitted to the Czech Parliament to extend the deadline by two years for compensation claims for illegal sterilisation. A vote is expected soon in the lower house on this amendment.
