Kubatana.net ~ an online community of Zimbabwean activists

Forced sterilisation

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I recently stumbled on a report online about sterilization of HIV positive women. I was baffled to learn that three women in Namibia had been sterilized without their consent. I have to admit that I haven’t heard of any such cases in Zimbabwe. All I see are means of educating HIV positive couples on ways of having healthier and possibly HIV negative children. Thus there is more talk of the mother to child transmission programmes and no talk of sterilization. The three women took the state hospitals to court for sterilizing them, making them barren on the basis that they are HIV positive. Now these women cry that they are going to be outcasts in their societies because of their barren nature. In African societies a woman is defined by being able to bear children. They say they have lost out on this ‘womanly definition’ against their own will.

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