The National Department of Health denies ever having carried out forced sterilisation on HIV+ women, saying that has never been its policy, and that all family planning choices are voluntary and made with proper counselling, reports TimesLIVE.
Spokesperson Foster Mohale said that absolutely no sterilisation was allowed without consent, except in very exceptional circumstances.
This follows the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health demanding accountability from those responsible for the “long-standing and systemic” forced and coerced sterilisation of black, impoverished HIV-positive women, which it said was a violation of reproductive rights, and a form of gender-based violence (GBV), discrimination and torture.
Polity reports that the committe’s ire came in the wake of a presentation from social impact organisation Her Rights Initiative (HRI), which revealed that for more than two decades, poor black women were being subjected to forced or coerced sterilisation, often without informed consent, and with many suffering lifelong physical, psychological, cultural and social harm.
Committee chairperson Faith Muthambi said the committee wanted full reports on actions taken to stop the practice; and recovery and preservation of medical records and timelines for legislative reform, including amendment of the Sterilisation Act.
It had said it would summon the Departments of Health, Justice & Constitutional Development, Social Development and Women, Youth & Persons with Disabilities; and the Health Professions Council of South Africa to appear before it.
Muthambi said the committee would also demand the provision of medical, psychological and social support for victims, and plans for redress and compensation, adding that there was concerns about the loss of medical records, the failure to implement recommendations of the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE)– and the lack of accountability.
More than 100 women
The HRI organisation is providing legal support to 104 HIV-positive women who have said they were coerced into sterilisation. HRI programme lead Dr Sethembiso-Promise Mthembu said they had filed a complaint with the United Nations in 2023, which wrote back in 2024 saying the women’s human rights and dignity were violated.
“These are women who were sterilised between 1997 and 2023, and almost all of them were aged between 17 and 32 at the time,” Mthembu said.
In 2015, HRI had approached the CGE, which then launched an investigation. In a report released in 2020, it found the state had violated a combination of 26 laws, including women’s rights to dignity, bodily integrity and security over their bodies.
It recommended, among other measures, that appropriate redress, restitution and rehabilitation be provided to the victims.
Mohale said the department was aware of the allegations and accepted the finding that “some or all of the complainants could not reasonably be said to have consented to the procedure given the current structure of the consent forms and the alleged unethical process/es used to obtain consent”.
He said the report contained 12 recommendations which the department is working to implement.
Mohale said family planning, which includes sterilisation for men and women and non-permanent methods, should be available as options for women or couples wanting to avoid pregnancy, and that no one should be coerced into accepting a family planning method.
Some of the steps implemented to strengthen the consent process include patients having to be counselled, before signing the consent form, by someone able to speak the same language as the patient.
“A checklist for counselling before postpartum tubal ligation [sterilisation after giving birth] has been developed and implemented,” he added, and individual cases where details have been furnished to the department were being reviewed in consultation with the relevant provincial health departments.
“Each province has been requested to investigate each case which occurred in their province, and ensure complaints are provided with reparative surgery for those who had post-surgery complications, post-trauma counselling and counselling and referral for those who are looking at adoption as an option for having children.”
He said the CGE initially gave the department a list of 48 names – contact details and permission to access medical records were received from 24 complainants.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
EFF lays criminal charges over forced sterilisations
HPCSA investigation into forced sterilisations ‘ongoing’
Commission’s report implicates the State in forced sterilisation of HIV+ women