By Alvine Kapitako
WINDHOEK – About five hundred people are expected to stage a protest march today starting in Katutura to the Windhoek Central Hospital where they will hand over a petition demanding that the government set aside plans to appeal a High Court decision last year in which the court ruled that three women were sterilised without consent and were therefore coerced.
Among the women who will participate in the demonstration are the women who were allegedly sterilised forcefully. Speaking at a media event yesterday, the Director of Women Solidarity Namibia and former MP Rosa Namises said dozens of women living with HIV have been subjected to forced or coerced sterilisation at public hospitals throughout the country.
“I have spent over five years listening to their grief at not being able to have children again and in some cases their fear of continued abuse by their husbands, families and communities due to their inability to bear children,” Namises said yesterday. In July last year, the High Court ruled that three women living with HIV had been subjected to coerced sterilisation in violation of the laws of Namibia and were therefore entitled to compensation.
“Even after this decision by the High court, the government has chosen not to address the issue and indeed has chosen to appeal the High Court decision thereby delaying the justice that all these women deserve,” said Namises. A hearing on this matter is scheduled for the Supreme Court on March 17 next year. The petition that will be handed over to senior officials in the Ministry of Health and Social Services today would among others appeal to the Namibian government to place circulars in public hospitals outlining what information a woman needs to be given and in what manner before she can consent to sterilisation and the government should provide regular training to medical personnel on informed consent, Jennifer Gatsi Mallet, the Director of the Namibian Women’s Health Network explained. She added that the current Abortion and Sterilisation Act is outdated and should be revised. Having clear guidelines on sterilisation and revising the Abortion and Sterilisation Act would mean the rights of women, especially those living with HIV, would be respected Mallet further explained.
“The African Commission resolution reaffirms that the obligation of obtaining informed consent exists not only under Namibian law, but also under regional law which applies to Namibia having signed the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the rights of women in Africa,” Namises said.She was making reference to resolutions adopted by the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights at its 54th ordinary session held from October 22 to November 5, 2013 in the Gambia. The women who were allegedly coerced into sterilisation played a pivotal part in mobilising members of the community to join in the planned march, Mallet said.