Campaigners seek EU-wide ban on forced sterilization

STORY: Cristina Paredero was diagnosed with a form of autism at the age of 18 and says her parents pressured her into agreeing to get sterilized.

The Spanish activist is among campaigners seeking an EU-wide ban on forced sterilization of people with disabilities.

Paradero says her parents intervened when she embarked on a serious relationship and she eventually agreed to have the procedure.

“At that time I believed everything my parents told me, that autism was a disability and that it was something that was going to disable me for life. It was something bad, it was something to hide, it was something that was going to make me dependent.”

Paredero is no longer in touch with her parents and Reuters was unable to contact them for comment.

She’s now 31 and helped draft a 2020 law banning forced or coerced sterilization in Spain.

She’s now fighting to outlaw the practice across the European Union.

“Really the fight and all the activism I have done against forced sterilizations, for a European law to protect women, is because this is gender violence, gender violence cannot be condoned. I am not thinking about whether or not I want to have biological children. I think that is secondary. I believe that all women have the right to decide for themselves.”

Forced sterilization is a surgical procedure that removes a person's capacity to have children without consent, or under undue pressure.

There is currently no EU-wide policy on the issue and the practice remains legal or not explicitly banned in 12 of the EU's 27 members states, including Portugal, Croatia and Finland.

Here’s Marine Uldry from the European Disability Forum or EDF.

“It shows that our societies still have a very paternalistic view of persons with disabilities, that they believe that they can take decision for a person with disabilities instead of respecting their rights. It also shows that there is a lack of understanding on what the reality is for persons with disabilities.”

The EDF says it is planning to take its fight to each of the 12 EU states that do not explicitly ban the procedure.

It campaigned to get it included in recent EU directive against violence against women.

An official told Reuters the European Commission was looking to include forced sterilization as a "harmful practice" in an upcoming recommendation to complement the directive.

Although lawyers contracted by the EDF state the EU has signed the Istanbul Convention, which bans forced sterilization.