DEAR DIARY : Forced sterilisation of women
What you need to know:
- Many women in some countries in the continent are allegedly being coerced into sterilisation because of their HIV status.
- I think each country has its own HIV and sexual reproductive health policies. However, some of these policies need to be reviewed when they violate human rights.
Last week, the subject of forced sterilisation of women featured during the International Conference on HIV/Aids that took place in Durban, South Africa.
Many women in some countries in the continent are allegedly being coerced into sterilisation because of their HIV status.
I think each country has its own HIV and sexual reproductive health policies. However, some of these policies need to be reviewed when they violate human rights.
I have worked extensively on forced sterilisation stories in the past and what I learnt from that experience is that some crude health workers also forcibly sterilise even women living with disability.
The famous cases of Namibian and Kenyan women are some of the famous incidents of forced sterilisation that caught the world’s attention in the past.
However, such cases were not only isolated to those specific countries because just recently, a damning report revealed that the practice is rife in Uganda and many other countries as well.
It is only that some of the affected women are afraid to talk about their ordeal due to stigma.
In some cases, health workers even threatened to deny HIV positive women antiretroviral drugs if they refuse to be sterilised. This means forced sterilisation of HIV positive women is going on in some quarters in Africa and needs to be dealt with.
For a start, women who have experienced these violations should be encouraged to come out and talk about it to relevant authorities.
They should then be taken for counselling to ensure that they get psychosocial support after their traumatic ordeal.
After recovery, they should then be given legal services to take up their cases against their abusers. There should also be countrywide awareness campaign informing the public that even HIV positive women have sexual and reproductive health rights that should be respected.
I wonder where some of these health workers got the idea that HIV positive women do not have the right to be pregnant and have children.
I believe in respect of human rights and that is why this degrading treatment of HIV positive women has to stop in Africa once and for all.
