Radio Free Europe, December 13, 2013
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| The sterilizations -- through removal of the uterus or cutting of the fallopian tubes -- happen without the patient's knowledge and often is not learned of until much later, for example when the woman fails to get pregnant again. |
A new
report on forced sterilization of women in Uzbekistan at government clinics
says the practice remains widespread across the country.
BBC Central
Asia correspondent Natalia Antelava, the author of the report by the U.S.-based
Open Society Foundations, says medical professionals throughout the country are
under government pressure to perform sterilizations as a means to combat
population growth.
Presenting
the report to the press in Washington on December 13 and earlier this week in
New York, she said all women of reproductive age who had delivered two or more
children were potential targets for forced sterilization.
"The
sterilization campaign by the government is still carrying on, it's happening
everywhere, across Uzbekistan," Antelava told reporters on December 11 in
New York. "So, it is not that individual regions are targeted, rather
across the country clinics and hospitals are performing the procedures. It
hasn't shown any sign of slowing down in the last five years."
She said
that women with lower socioeconomic status and representatives of ethnic
minorities were the most likely to be sterilized.
The
sterilizations -- through removal of the uterus or cutting of the fallopian
tubes -- happen without the patient's knowledge and often is not learned of
until much later.
"The
typical story is that the woman gives birth, then tries to get pregnant again,
fails to get pregnant, then goes to a doctor and finds out that she has been
sterilized," Antelava explained.
Antelava
also said that local health administrators attempted to outperform one another
in order to please the central authorities.
"It's
very clear that there are certain quotas on the number of sterilizations that
doctors perform but it is very difficult to trace these quotas up to
Tashkent," she said.
"So,
while the country is extremely centralized, there is also a real sense of
competition between lower down the chain of command, between the local
bureaucrats, local hospitals, and local doctors to outperform each other."
Since 1999,
Uzbekistan's ongoing and systematic forced-sterilization program has affected
tens of thousands of women, Antelava added.
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