From:[NextGenderation]
US Government, United Nations to Hear Testimony
Budapest, Brno, New York, Ostrava, Washington DC
August 15, 2006.
Three important human rights events will take place
this week on the
issue of coercive sterilization of Romani women:
* Today, expert testimony on problem of coercive
sterilization of
Romani women in the Czech Republic will be heard by
the US Helsinki
Commission, the US government's premiere human rights
watchdog agency.
* During review of the Czech Republic's compliance
with international
human rights law, human rights experts and victims of
extreme abuses,
will testify before the United Nations women's rights
committee
(CEDAW) on 17 August.
* Also 17 August a public event will be held in
Ostrava, Czech
Republic, to protest the continuing failure by Czech
authorities to
provide due legal remedy to victims of coercive
sterilization.
These events aim to draw attention to the continuing
failure by Czech
policy- and lawmakers to ensure that women in the
Czech Republic are
protected from extreme harms such as violence at the
hands of family
members and coercive sterilization.
In the run-up to these events, NGO partners have
provided detailed
documentation to the UN CEDAW Committee in the form of
an NGO Shadow
Report by the League of Human Rights, European Roma
Rights Centre,
and Gender Studies. The report addresses a number of
categories of
serious human rights abuses of women, including
extreme forms of
abuse such as domestic violence and coercive
sterilization, as well
as very problematic law, policy, and practice in a
number of areas of
relevance to the UN Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women. The NGO Shadow Report is
available at:
*
http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2136 AND
*
http://www.llp.cz/subdomains/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24&Itemid=14
The Shadow Report comes to the conclusion that "legal
protection
against discrimination remains insufficient in the
Czech Republic"
and notes that women in the Czech Republic remain
vulnerable to
extreme forms of human rights abuse. The relevant
state bodies have
failed to adequately address the issue of coercive
sterilization by
introducing a compensation mechanism for the victims.
As a result,
nearly all of the hundreds of victims of this practice
have to date
been denied due remedy.
Testifying at the CEDAW Committee session will be:
* Gwendolyn Albert, Director of the League of Human
Rights and
representing at the CEDAW session the League of Human
Rights and the
European Roma Rights Centre;
* Elena Gorolova of the victim initiative "Women
Harmed by Coercive
Sterilization" and herself a victim of these
practices;
* Alena Kralikova of the Prague-based NGO Gender
Studies.
Victims of coercive sterilizations have also organised
a peaceful
meeting to raise awareness about the issue in front of
the Fifejdy
hospital in the city of Ostrava on August 17, the same
day the NGO
Shadow Report will be presented to the United Nations.
Other issues detailed in the NGO shadow report
include:
* The failure to date by Czech Parliament to adopt a
comprehensive
anti-discrimination law, to give domestic law effect
to the rights
guaranteed in the CEDAW Convention.
* The need to improve the justice system's response to
domestic
violence.
Contact Information
For Romani womens rights issues in the Czech Republic:
* Gwendolyn Albert, Director, League of Human Rights
Tel in US: + 1 860 538 8137
Tel in Europe: + 420 777 621 227
* Ostalinda Maya Ovalle, Women's Rights Officer,
European Roma Rights
Centre,
Tels: +36 1 41 32 200, + 36 70 60 258 31
* Michaela Kopalova, League/ERRC lawyer representing
sterilization
victims
Tel: +420 545 210 446
*Madla Cechova, League domestic violence coordinator
Tel: + 420 545 245 996
For the meeting in Ostrava:
*Life Together, Lucie DiAndrea
Tel.: + 420 596 130 716, + 420 775 761 191
Note for editors
The International Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Convention) is the
primary
international law mechanism setting out states
obligations to end
discrimination against women. The CEDAW Convention can
be downloaded
here:
http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cedaw.htm
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW Committee) is the premiere
women's rights review
body in the world, and the arbiter of matters under
the CEDAW
Convention. UN CEDAW Committee periodically reviews
States'
compliance with the CEDAW Convention. It will review
the Czech
Republic's compliance with the CEDAW Convention on
August 17.
Information on the UN CEDAW Committee is available at:
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/.
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
also known as
the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an independent agency
of the U.S.
Government charged with monitoring compliance with the
Helsinki Final
Act and other commitments of the 56 participating
States in the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE).
(
http://www.csce.gov/)
The League of Human Rights is a nongovernmental
organisation
providing legal aid to victims of human rights
violations,
particularly to those who are members of groups most
at risk of such
violations. More at
www.llp.cz.
Life Together is a Czech Romani organisation fighting
social
exclusion and marginalisation in the Ostrava region of
the Czech
Republic, as well as strengthening Czech-Roma mutual
confidence and
co-operation.
The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) is an
international public
interest law organisation engaging in a range of
activities aimed at
combating anti-Romani racism and human rights abuse of
Roma, in
particular strategic litigation, international
advocacy, research and
policy development, and training of Romani activists.
Information
about the European Roma Rights Centre is available at
www.errc.org.
Gender Studies (GS) is a non-governmental non-profit
organisation
performing the function of an information,
consultation, and
education centre on relations between women and men
and their
positions in society. The goal of the organisation is
to gather,
analyze, work with and disseminate further information
related to
gender-relevant issues. More at
www.en.genderstudies.cz.
Useful links
1) NGO Shadow Report to CEDAW:
*
http://www.llp.cz/subdomains/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24&Itemid=14
*
http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2136
2) Czech Ombudsman's report on sterilizations:
http://www.ochrance.cz/en/dokumenty/dokument.php?doc=400
3) Sterilization cases handled by the League of Human
Rights:
http://www.llp.cz/subdomains/en/index.php?option=com_pressreleases&secid=8&catid=52&Itemid=77
4) Further information on coercive sterilization of
Romani women:
http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2541
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