Military

DATE=4/11/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=OSCE / SLOVAKIA/ ROMA (L-O)

NUMBER=2-302099

BYLINE=MELANIE SULLY

DATELINE=VIENNA

CONTENT=

INTRO: Human rights groups have for years charged that Romany women in the Slovak Republic are being sterilized against their will. The charge came up again Friday at a conference in Vienna hosted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Melanie Sully was at the conference and has details.

TEXT: At the Vienna conference, delegates from the U-S-based Helsinki Commission raised the issue.

The commission is an independent U-S agency made up of officials from various branches of the U-S government. Much of its work involves human rights issues.

Erika Schlager, an adviser to the commission, told V-O-A that intolerance toward the Roma has a long tradition in Slovakia.

/// SCHLAGER ACT ///

There has been a steady stream of voices in Slovakia for a decade calling for a reduction of the Roma birth rate. I think one of the most striking examples of this from a person in a significant position was the statement by the person who was then health minister in 1995, who went to a political rally and said that the government would do everything it could to ensure that more white babies are born than Roma babies.

/// END ACT ///

Ms. Schlager said that this attitude has created a climate in which some doctors may be less than careful in securing legal consent from women before sterilizing them.

The Slovak Ministry of Health has issued a statement acknowledging that two Roma minors underwent sterilization, without the consent of their guardians.

The Slovak government has set up a special commission of inquiry to investigate the forced sterilization issue, but human rights groups say it should be expanded to include international experts.

Human rights groups want the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, of which Slovakia is a member, to examine the allegations in a new action plan dealing with discrimination against Roma communities.

/// OPT TO END /// Ms. Schlager says that there have been examples of other countries where similar sterilization programs have been carried out where the governments have since apologized.

/// 2nd SCHLAGER ACT ///

I believe that the governments of Norway and Sweden have acknowledged at previous O-S-C-E meetings that they, in previous decades, had state-run programs for conducting sterilizations and that Roma had been among them, and that they regretted this very much. I should quickly add that, in the United States, in the 20th century, for roughly five decades, there were more than 30 states that had state-run sterilization programs, and that the governors of North Carolina and South Carolina and Oregon and Virginia in the last year have all issued apologies for those programs that ended in 1970.

/// END ACT ///

Around 90 non-governmental organizations and 200 delegates attended the O-S-C-E conference in Vienna. (Signed)

NEB/MS/KL/KBK/TW