An investigation which is likely to make noise in South Africa. About 50 South Africans living with HIV have been forcibly sterilized in hospitals in South Africa, an investigation on Monday found many human rights violations and calls for government action.
This investigation was launched in 2015 when two women's rights organizations approached the Commission for Gender Equality in South Africa (CGE) with 48 documented cases of forced sterilization. The CGE had gathered sworn testimony from complainants reporting these sterilizations.
Sterilization versus care
"All of the women who filed complaints were black women who were predominantly carriers of HIV," said CGE chief Keketso Maema, quoted in the report released Monday. "When they were about to give birth (...) they were forced or forced to sign forms which they later learned were consent forms allowing the hospital to use various means to sterilize them, "according to the terms of the document.
All the cases mentioned in the report took place between 2002 and 2015. Investigators discovered that hospital staff threatened to refuse to provide these women with medical care if they did not sign these forms.
Many depressions
Some of the complainants, according to this report, stated that they received these forms when they were going through moments of "extreme pain" during which they could not fully understand the content of these forms and what they were signing. All of these women gave birth by cesarean section, facilitating sterilization surgery.
Many of them fell into depression after discovering that they could no longer have children, and some were abandoned by their spouses.
Severed fallopian tubes
One of these victims told investigators that she had discovered late that her fallopian tubes - one of the constituent parts of the female reproductive system and whose role is essential in the reproductive process - had been severed after childbirth.
She learned what had happened to her several years after consulting a private doctor to understand her new infertility. After giving birth, she stayed in the hospital for an abnormally long period of time to be treated for a scar infection after a cesarean. "She (...) was never informed of what had happened to her," in the words of the report, citing extracts from her testimony.
Another complainant had to sign the forms and when she asked the nurse why she should do so, she replied, "You people with HIV don't ask yourself questions when you have babies ".
"Why are you asking questions now, you should be sterilized, people living with HIV, you like to have babies, and it bothers us. Sign the forms and go. ”
A report communicated to the Minister of Health
The commission concluded that these women were exposed to serious human rights violations and suffered "degrading treatment". In addition, she accuses the hospital staff of having failed in their "obligation to care". This report was communicated to the South African Ministry of Health, which did not wish to speak immediately.
The total number of people living with HIV in South Africa has increased from around 4.64 million in 2002 to 7.97 million in 2019, according to government statistics. In 2019, 13.5% of the total population in South Africa was HIV positive.
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