The practice of forced sterilisation took place between 1966 and 2012, and often targeted women from Romani communities. Its illegality stemmed primarily from the absence of informed consent.
“It is important to understand that reproductive rights and medical practices at the time were heavily influenced by patriarchy. It was common for society to view doctors as those who knew better than the patients themselves what they should do and what they should want,” explains the academic and human rights activist Gwendolyn Albert, an ally for the victims in their pursuit of justice.
The first mentions of forced sterilisations in Czechoslovakia date back to the 1960s, a time when European countries were striving to replace the population lost during World War II. Additionally, there was a growing concern in Czechoslovakia about the declining birth rate.
Extensions of maternity leave, child allowances and other benefits were introduced to encourage higher birth rates. At the same time, the state focused on the ‘quality’ of the population. “At that time, Roma were considered inferior. They were viewed as being born with disabilities and prone to criminality,” Albert explains, noting that this narrative was also used by Nazi Germany.
By the late 1960s, the Czechoslovak Ministry of Health began openly discussing the need to regulate the Romani population. “At that time, [Czechoslovak] medical professionals suggested that if sterilisation laws were more flexible, they could help limit the reproduction of undesirable people – those deemed antisocial or with lower cognitive abilities,” she describes.
In 1972, a decree was issued allowing doctors to sterilise women who were deemed prone to criminality, antisocial behaviour, imbecility, alcoholism and other conditions. “However, these diagnoses were in the hands of local healthcare workers and social workers,” Albert explains, emphasising that this policy primarily targeted Romani women, who were often misled about the irreversible nature of the procedure.
In the 1980s, social workers deliberately used financial incentives to persuade women to agree to sterilisation. “Social workers offered women money or vouchers for a new washing machine and presented sterilisation as something that was in their best interest,” she describes.
Just like Grundzova, thousands of women are estimated to have been sterilised without full consent. Others were subjected to the procedure during a cesarean section while giving birth, only finding out years later.
After the split of Czechoslovakia into two states in 1993, victims began speaking up about the practice of coerced sterilisation and began fighting for compensation.
After a 20-year-long battle, in 2022, victims in the Czech Republic finally secured reparations when the government agreed to compensate those sterilised unlawfully. The bill granted 300,000 Czech crowns (10,500 euros) to each eligible survivor.
Some applied but never lived to see the compensation. One such case was Vlasta Holubova, who passed away in July 2023. Her application was delayed, like many others, despite the Czech Ministry of Health having a legal obligation to process applications within 30 days.
Lengthy waiting periods
The reparations bill was heavily criticised by victims and NGOs for failing to deliver long-awaited justice. “If this was meant to be a belated attempt at recognising the injustice, then it has failed,” Albert says.
She primarily criticises the lengthy waiting periods, during which victims had to wait months for the Czech Health Ministry’s decision. “I often wondered if some official had died and forgotten to pass the files on. I didn’t expect it to turn out this badly. It didn’t serve its purpose – so many women had to turn to the courts, so many were rejected by the Ministry of Health, even though the courts repeatedly pointed out its flawed decisions,” she explains.
She refers to dozens of victims who, over the past two years, have taken their rejected compensation claims to municipal courts. In every case known to the authors of this article, the courts ruled in favour of the victims.
To this day, the state has compensated 536 victims, rejected 580 applications, and suspended over a thousand others for various reasons. The process, which aimed to rectify one of the worst human rights violations in modern Czech history, has fallen far short of expectations.
Slovakia: A parallel struggle
While the Czech Republic’s compensation process has been slow and inconsistent, Slovakia has yet to offer any form of reparations. Romani women there are still fighting for justice – often through lengthy court proceedings that many may not survive.
One exception is Ingrid Ginova, from the segregated Roma settlement of Richnava in eastern Slovakia. In January 2000, at just 16 years old, she arrived in labour at the hospital in Krompachy. Her second daughter was born via C-section. Three years later, she discovered that she had been sterilised during the procedure.
“After I woke up from the anaesthesia, a doctor came in and asked me to sign a paper. He said all women who had a C-section had to do it. I was young. I didn’t understand, so I just did what I was told,” she says. The paper was a retroactive sterilisation consent form.
Ginova was never told that she had undergone tubal ligation. “I didn’t even know what sterilisation meant. I would never have agreed. I wanted four or five children,” she says. As a minor, her parents’ consent would have been required; no one from the hospital informed them.
Following her C-section, Ginova developed a severe infection. She was transferred to the university hospital in Kosice, where doctors had to remove her uterus and ovaries to save her life. Even there, no one told her she had been sterilised.
Her story is not unique. The exact number of women sterilised in Slovakia remains unknown.
“This wasn’t about a few rogue doctors – it was a system,” says lawyer Vanda Durbakova from the Center for Civil and Human Rights. “The practice began under Communism, and because there was no accountability, it continued after the transition. Slovakia is not alone. These cases happened across Europe.”
Similar practices have been documented in Sweden, Norway, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany and Switzerland.
A turning point came in 2003 with the publication of the report Body and Soul. Based on interviews with 230 Romani women, it exposed systematic abuses by Slovak hospitals: segregation from white patients, denial of access to medical records, verbal and physical abuse. More than 140 women had been sterilised without proper consent, most of them after 1989.
The report triggered international outrage. Slovakia, then a candidate for EU membership, faced pressure from the UN and the Council of Europe. Still, no one was held accountable.
Barbara Bukowska, who co-authored the report, recalls the backlash. “Everyone wanted to believe Slovakia was moving toward a modern European identity. We were accused of tarnishing the country’s reputation,” she says.
When she investigated claims of segregation in Krompachy hospital, a doctor physically assaulted her. After the publication of Body and Soul, she became the target of criminal proceedings. Prosecutors argued that if her claims were untrue, she had spread false information; if they were accurate, she had failed to report a crime.
Since then, Romani women and their lawyers have filed over a dozen lawsuits. Most were rejected by Slovak courts. “At first, we thought justice would come in months. It’s been more than 20 years,” Bukowska says.
Ginova finally received justice in 2012, when the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in her favour and awarded compensation. “It was a relief,” she says, “but it didn’t change anything for others. Doctors still treat us as less than human.”
Formal apology
Investigations into illegal sterilisations in Slovakia have been rare. In the case of the Krompachy hospital, the Slovak Prosecutor General’s Office eventually closed the file, citing a lack of evidence that any crime had occurred.
Durbakova remains critical of the authorities’ inaction. “Police urged women to come forward, but in an atmosphere where their experiences were denied by both society and their own communities, many lacked the confidence to do so.”
Roma are the second-largest minority in Slovakia, with an estimated population of 400,000. They have long faced systemic discrimination and exclusion.
In 2004, Slovakia introduced a new healthcare law requiring informed consent and a mandatory 30-day waiting period for sterilisations. But no one has been held accountable for past abuses.
The state only officially acknowledged its responsibility in 2021, issuing a formal apology: “The government condemns the use of sterilisations as a means of birth control targeting socially disadvantaged groups, particularly Roma women. We consider regulating the number of children as an infringement on personal integrity and a violation of human rights.”
Yet no compensation law has followed. A 2023 proposal by MP Peter Pollak Jr. failed to advance in parliament amid snap elections. It has since stalled.
During a 2024 visit to Slovakia, Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, urged the government to act: “The government must not wait any longer to heal the ongoing wounds. It must deliver justice, including by setting up an accessible and effective compensation mechanism.”
Slovakia’s Ministry of Justice now says it intends to draft a compensation law by the end of 2025.. Details remain vague: it has not specified how much victims would receive, how claims would be assessed, or whether women sterilised in Slovakia but now living abroad – including in Czechia – would qualify.
For the women who were sterilised without their consent, no amount of money can restore what was taken. But a clear reckoning from governments, institutions, and the public is clearly overdue.
“As a society, we must unequivocally condemn such practices and at least symbolically compensate the women who were harmed by them, so that we can close this dark chapter of our history,” urges Durbakova.
This article was published with the support of Journalismfund Europe.
