Romani Women Sterilized in Slovakia

 
A recent report by the Center for Reproductive Rights (New York) documents that at least 110 Romani women have been sterilized without their consent and against their will in Slovakia since 1989.  "Slovak doctors deny any form of discrimination..." (New York Times, February 28, 2002, 3). 

Ruth Weinberger (Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany) remarks on this, describing her reaction in relation to her interviews of female Holocaust survivors telling of past forced sterilization experiments  (Forward, March 7, 2003, 9):  

"At least, I comforted myself, the forced sterilization of particular ethnic groups was a thing of the past.  Crimes like 
that could not happen anymore in today's Europe. Or could they?.... Slovakia is scheduled to join the European Union in 2004.  A respect for human rights of minorities is a basic requirement for membership in the union.  Why, then, is Brussels not holding Slovakia accountable?.... According to the Center for Reproductive Rights report, Slovakian doctors marked Romani medical files with a large capital letter "R."  Do we need to revert back to a large capital "Z"--for the German term for Gypsies, Zigeuner--before we sound the alarm? Or do we need to wait until medical files are labeled with a large capital "J" for Jude before we take action?"