13 April, 2012

BBC News - Uzbekistan's policy of secretly sterilising women

BBC News - Uzbekistan's policy of secretly sterilising women: "I always dreamed of having four - two daughters and two sons - but after my second daughter I couldn't get pregnant," she says.
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Every doctor is told how many women are to be sterilised - there is a quota”

End Quote Uzbek gynaecologist

She went to see a doctor and found out that she had been sterilised after giving birth to her daughter by Caesarean section.

"I was shocked. I cried and asked: 'But why? How could they do this?' The doctor said, 'That's the law in Uzbekistan.'"

Sterilisation is not, officially, the law in Uzbekistan.

But evidence gathered by the BBC suggests that the Uzbek authorities have run a programme over the last two years to sterilise women across the country, often without their knowledge.