Forced sterilisation of Romani women
For decades, doctors in Czechoslovakia and its successor states sterilise Romani women without their free and informed consent, sometimes encouraged by state payments, a practice exposed only in the 2000s.
- Final Statement of the Public Defender of Rights in the Matter of Sterilisations Performed in Contravention of the Law — Public Defender of Rights of the Czech Republic (2005)
- Czech Republic: Hard-won justice for women survivors of unlawful sterilization — Amnesty International (2021)
- Health Ministry receives 2,639 requests for compensation over sterilisation of Roma women — Brno Daily (2026)
- Delayed justice for decades: the state still owes compensation to forcibly sterilized Roma women — Poradňa pre občianske a ľudské práva
- The East European Gypsies: Regime Change, Marginality, and Ethnopolitics — Zoltan Barany, Cambridge University Press (2002)
From the 1970s, communist Czechoslovakia treated the high birth rate of Roma as a social problem, and a 1972 decree allowed social departments to offer women payments to be sterilised; officials targeted Romani women in particular. Many women were sterilised during caesarean sections or childbirth, signing forms they did not understand, or under threat of losing their children or benefits. The practice did not end with communism: cases continued in the Czech Republic and Slovakia into the 2000s.
- Final Statement of the Public Defender of Rights in the Matter of Sterilisations Performed in Contravention of the Law — Public Defender of Rights of the Czech Republic (2005)
- The East European Gypsies: Regime Change, Marginality, and Ethnopolitics — Zoltan Barany, Cambridge University Press (2002)
- Delayed justice for decades: the state still owes compensation to forcibly sterilized Roma women — Poradňa pre občianske a ľudské práva
Survivors and activists such as Elena Gorolová in Ostrava brought the issue to light, and a 2003 report on Slovakia, Body and Soul, documented dozens of cases. In 2021 the Czech parliament passed a law offering 300,000 crowns to people unlawfully sterilised between 1966 and 2012; by early 2026 the health ministry had received over 2,600 applications and approved more than 1,100, though many women struggle to prove what happened decades ago. In Slovakia, some women have won compensation in court, including at the European Court of Human Rights, but a compensation law has repeatedly failed in parliament.
- Czech Republic: Hard-won justice for women survivors of unlawful sterilization — Amnesty International (2021)
- Health Ministry receives 2,639 requests for compensation over sterilisation of Roma women — Brno Daily (2026)
- Delayed justice for decades: the state still owes compensation to forcibly sterilized Roma women — Poradňa pre občianske a ľudské práva
A deliberate policy, rooted in the idea that Romani births were a "problem", to reduce the Romani population; women were sterilised during caesareans without being asked, pressured while in labour, or told their benefits would be cut.
- Final Statement of the Public Defender of Rights in the Matter of Sterilisations Performed in Contravention of the Law — Public Defender of Rights of the Czech Republic (2005)
- Delayed justice for decades: the state still owes compensation to forcibly sterilized Roma women — Poradňa pre občianske a ľudské práva
The Czech ombudsman in 2005 found that unlawful sterilisations had taken place and that Romani women were particularly at risk. The Czech government expressed regret in 2009 and passed a compensation law in 2021; Slovakia's government apologised in 2021 but has not passed a compensation law. Both governments have avoided calling it a deliberate ethnic policy after 1989.
- Final Statement of the Public Defender of Rights in the Matter of Sterilisations Performed in Contravention of the Law — Public Defender of Rights of the Czech Republic (2005)
- Czech Republic: Hard-won justice for women survivors of unlawful sterilization — Amnesty International (2021)
- Delayed justice for decades: the state still owes compensation to forcibly sterilized Roma women — Poradňa pre občianske a ľudské práva
Why it matters today
The sterilisations are within living memory, and many survivors are still fighting for recognition and compensation. They confirm for many Roma that hospitals, social workers and state institutions cannot be trusted, and they echo the Nazi sterilisation programmes in a way that is deeply painful.