Dozens of HIV-positive women forced into sterilisation after giving birth, says report

DOZENS OF HIV-positive women were forced or coerced into sterilisation after giving birth at public hospitals in South Africa, a new report has claimed.

The Commission for Gender Equality said it investigated complaints by at least 48 women of “cruel, torturous or inhumane and degrading treatment” at the hospitals.

At times, it occurred when women were in labour.

In many cases, “the hospitals’ staff had threatened not to assist them in giving birth” if they did not sign the consent forms for sterilisation, the report said.

The commission is a statutory body that operates as an independent watchdog.

The forced sterilisations, which took place at 15 public hospitals in South Africa between 2002 and 2005, have sparked public outrage.

Some of the hospitals are in some of the country’s largest cities such as Johannesburg and Durban.

The report quotes one complainant as saying: “When I asked the nurse what the forms were for, the nurse responded by saying: ‘You HIV people don’t ask questions when you make babies. Why are you asking questions now?

“You must be closed up because you HIV people like making babies and it just annoys us.”

The commission said its investigation took time because of challenges including some hospital staff who tried to hide documents or refused to co-operate.

It will refer its report to the Health Professions Council of South Africa, which has a mandate to act against healthcare practitioners. The World Health Organisation says that South Africa has the largest HIV epidemic in the world, with more than seven million people living with the illness.

Some 19 per cent of the people around the world with HIV live in the country, which also has 15 per cent of new infections.

The commission has recommended further research into how widespread the practice of forced sterilisation of women living with HIV might be in South Africa.