Pollak: State Should Apologise to and Compensate Forcibly Sterilised Women

Bratislava, July 21 (TASR) – The state should apologise to women subjected to forced sterilisation and compensate them, House Committee for Human Rights and Ethnic Minorities chair Peter Pollak (OLaNO) concurred with Public Ombudswoman Maria Patakyova and other committee members at a session on Wednesday.

The Ombudswoman voiced hope that an appropriate compensation mechanism will be found and pointed out that forced sterilisation poses a great intervention into the integrity of women.

Some of the affected women also attended the session and stressed the need to prevent such practices, so that no other female has to live through a similar experience.

“Fairness is the foundation of a decent rule of law, which cares about comprehensive protection of its citizens. The women sterilised against their will certainly deserve justice. Seeing as previous governments failed to address the forced sterilisations for decades, it’s understandable that the process of rectifying the wrongs visited on these women won’t be a short walk in the park. Because of this, as the chair of the Committee for Human Rights and Ethnic Minorities, I initiate a roundtable,” stated Pollak, adding that a Czech model could serve as a source of inspiration.

Together with the Ombudswoman, Pollak underlined that the least that the state and the Government can do straight away is to apologise and he plans to reach out to the Cabinet with a proposal to that effect.