‘Ruined my life’: sterilized Czech Rome awaits compensation

Czech Anna Adamova is still persecuted more than three decades after she was forced to sterilization that, according to her, irreparably damaged her life.

Adamova, a member of the Romaní minority often marginalized from the country of Central Europe, was about to give birth to his fourth son of only 22 years in 1991 when he says she was pressed to accept being sterilized.

Adamova is one of the thousands who have requested compensation to the Czech government, although, he says, this cannot compensate for the injustice he suffered.

“They ruined my life,” the 55 -year -old told AFP in a small floor in Ralsko, a former military area northeast of Prague.

She says that a social worker had threatened to remove her the fourth child not yet born if she did not agree with sterilization and that later, her partner left her because “the Romani see an infertile woman as useless.”

She was part of a decades sterilization program aimed mainly at Romani women, which the Czech government has since recognized it was illegal.

The Czech Republic is an exception when trying to offer reparation for the so -called contraceptive measures implemented during the communist era.

A law approved in 2021 and that covers the period between 1966 and 2012 grants compensation for 300,000 Czechs Koruna ($ 14,000) to each person who was illegally sterilized.

A deadline for applications expired on January 1, but Parliament is expected to extend this month.

More than 2,300 people have requested compensation, said the Czech Ministry of Health.

“We have established 1,581 applications, including 581 rejections,” said spokesman Ondrej Jakob to the AFP.

– ‘Ignored testimonies’ –

The government and activists do not know how many people were illegally sterilized by virtue of the program, which began under communism and especially attacked Romani women.

Communism was demolished in Czechoslovakia in 1989, but sterilizations continued until the 2000s.

“They wanted to reduce the number of Romani children,” said Elena Gorolova, who was 21 when she sterilized in 1990 and has since become a spokeswoman for those affected.

The Rome community officially counts about 22,000 people in the EU country of 10.9 million, but unofficial estimates put their number at about 250,000.

The EU authorities regularly highlight discrimination against the minority, even in access to housing and education.

In a letter to Prime Minister Czech Petro Fiala last year, the Commissioner for the Rights of the Council of Europe, Michael O’Flaherty, urged an extension of the deadline for compensation applications.

When writing as last minute applications they began to accumulate, O’Flaherty criticized “deficiencies in the procedure and practice”, including an excessive burden of evidence placed in the victims.

Gorolova, who received compensation, said the Ministry of Health rejected some applicants whose medical records had been crushed after 40 years.

Jakob said that the Ministry had promoted staff, established an aid line and made seminars for non -profit organizations that deal with compensation requests.

But Gorolova said it was skeptical.

“They ignore women’s testimonies. In addition, they take years dealing with that,” he said.

Adamova, who is currently unemployed, is still waiting for his money, who hopes to transmit to his children and grandchildren.

He requested in September 2024 after finding information on Facebook compensation by accident.

– ‘terribly scared’ –

Adamova is still marked by the sterilization experience, especially the threat that his son would take away.

“I was terribly scared, so I said yes … I didn’t know what the word meant,” said Adamova, who at that time lived in a single room with his partner and three other children, without water or heating.

After the doctors took his uterus, Adamova’s couple left her, and it has been difficult for her to maintain relationships since then due to prejudices within her community, she said.

Gorolova also remembered how a nurse had asked him to give his consent saying: “Sign this or die.”

“So I took the newspaper and signed. I had no idea what was written there,” said the 56 -year -old man at the AFP.

After she gave birth to her second child, the doctors who performed the caesarean section also removed her belly.

“I couldn’t have other children and I wanted a girl so much. I will live with this until I die,” he said.

By Jan Flemr