By IPS Correspondents
BRATISLAVA, Feb 5 2003 (IPS)

The European Parliament has asked the Slovak government to investigate a report that many Roma women have been sterilised without their knowledge.

The government has been warned that it will face "complications" in joining the European Union next year if it fails to act. The European Parliament is due to meet in March to discuss the position of ten states, including Slovakia that have been invited to join the EU in 2004.

The warning was delivered by European Parliament special rapporteur for Slovakia, Jan Marius Wiersma, after the European Parliament was presented with the joint report by two NGOs (non-governmental organisations).

"The content of the report is disturbing and shocking," Wiersma said. "If such practices are being carried out, they need to be stopped immediately."

Slovakia is believed to have half a million Roma in a total population of about 5.4 million. But the real number could be higher because fear of persecution stops many from declaring their ethnicity on census forms.

Several Roma women have complained before that they have been sterilised without their consent. These complaints have not officially been investigated.

The forced sterilisations have been alleged in a 140-page report ‘Body and Soul’ published by the New York based Centre for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and the local Advisory Centre for Civil and Human Rights (POLP).

The report is based on interviews with 230 Roma women from about 40 settlements between August and October last year. It lists 110 recent cases of what it calls forced sterilisations in hospitals in eastern Slovakia.

The practice has continued for more than 60 years under the Nazis, the communists and now under the present regime, the report says. "Fear of a growing Roma population remains the driving force in justifying reproductive rights violations," the report says.

The report quotes a Roma woman in the east Slovak city Kosice as saying: "The nurses call us Cigani (Gypsies), they tell us that we are dirty and too young to have sex. They call Roma teenagers ‘young whores’. When they see us pregnant they say: ‘You again! How many children do you want? We have enough of you already’."

The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights had warned as far back as 1992 that many Roma women had not been made fully aware of the irreversible consequences of sterilisation when agreeing to the operation.

The report now documents cases where women were made to sign sterilisation consent forms while under the effect of anaesthesia. It says Roma women are often segregated and subjected to physical and verbal abuse by hospital staff when in labour.

"If you are a Roma woman in Slovakia, it is very likely that you will be sterilised against your will, that you will be put into maternity rooms segregated from white women, be slapped and verbally abused by medical staff," says Barbara Bukovská from POLP.

Doctors named in the report dismissed the allegations. "None of us doctors are prepared to risk their existence just for the sake of sterilising any woman without her consent," says Jan Kralik, head of the maternity and gynaecological department at the Krompachy city hospital in central Slovakia..

The government has responded quickly to the demand to investigate the claims. Pal Csaky, deputy prime minister for minorities, says he would personally make sure that an investigation is carried out.

Health Minister Rudolf Zajac says that forced sterilisations, if proved true, would be a "heinous and terrible crime."

But a cabinet official overseeing Roma communities, Klara Orgovanova, demanded stronger action. "The recent report is a weighty and grave document that includes a lot of sensitive information and allegations of some very serious criminal cases," she said.

"In many hospitals there are segregated rooms for Roma women, and the staff argue that this is because Roma are not clean," she said. "Such behaviour is absolutely unacceptable. There must be more education for medical staff."

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