African Women are Being Sterilized Without Their Consent

On a continent where AIDS and HIV are common, infected women who seek medical services are being sterilized against their will. The Guardian reported Monday that the International Community of Women Living with HIV/Aids (ICW) is going to sue the Namibian government for at least 15 cases of coerced sterilization. There have also been reports of this happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa and Zambia.
According to the article, the ICW has recorded cases in which women who are minutes away from giving birth are asked to sign consent forms to inhibit them from having more children. What the women do not know is just what they are agreeing to when they sign the form.

Jennifer Gatsi-Mallet, ICW's coordinator, told the Guardian,

"They were in pain, they were told to sign, they didn't know what it was. They thought that it was part of their HIV treatment. None of them knew what sterilization was, including those from urban areas, because it was never explained to them."

The article also said:

"After six weeks they went to the family planning center for birth control pills and were told that it's not necessary: they're sterile. Most of them were very upset. When they went back to the hospital and asked, 'Why did you do this to us?' the answer was: 'You've got HIV'."

Being coerced into sterilization has many negative effects for women. Many infertile women are shunned by their husbands and communities, and those who have not been sterilized, forgo medical treatments at hospitals for fear they will be sterilized.

"In African culture, if you are not able to have children, you are ostracised. It's worse than having HIV," Gatsi-Mallet said.

According to the Guardian,

"African women aged between 20 and 34 have a higher prevalence of HIV than any other social group; in South Africa one in three is infected.

On average an HIV-positive mother has a one in four risk of transmitting the virus to her child. With the latest antiretroviral drugs, the probability can be cut to less than one in 50. But such medical interventions are underfunded and inaccessible to millions of women across the continent."

In the upcoming lawsuit, the ICW will accuse the Namibian government of encouraging doctors to sterilize HIV positive women to stop the virus from spreading. The ICW requested to see the government's official guidelines regarding sterilizations, but the request was denied.

One of the highlighted cases against the Namibian government is that of Hilma Nendongo, 30, who is HIV positive. A few weeks after her son was born, she was asked by a nurse, "Oh, did they tell you that you had been sterilised?" Nendongo remembered signing forms before entering an operating room for a cesarean section.