The government of Namibia is being sued for coercing HIV positive women into being sterilised. According to the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW), at least 40 HIV-positive women were made infertile against their will.

Many of the women believed that they were undergoing routine treatment for HIV when they gave birth. It was only later that they found out that they could no longer have children. Esther Sheehama was just 21 when doctors carried out the operation that would change her life. She now works for the ICW.  She says:

“I came back after a month for antenatal care to come check if I am still ok and my baby is still fine, and then the nurse read my card and I asked for contraception and then the nurse said, 'For you there is no need now for contraceptives because you won't be able to have kids anymore.' And I was like, whoah, wow. Is that so?”

The ICW accuses the Namibian government of encouraging doctors to sterilise HIV-positive women to prevent the spread of the virus. There is a one in four risk that mothers can pass HIV to their children.  But with better medical treatment that risk can be reduced to one in 50.

Denial
The government denies any programme to coerce the women into being sterilised. It has gone as far as to accuse them of lying. Esther Sheehama says this is ridiculous.

“I mean, for goodness sake. Why would I make up a story like that, that I'm sterilised, you know? It's just like making up a whole story that you're HIV positive. It doesn't make sense at all. So, obviously, the women are really scared. Because some of these women are hardly educated. They cannot read and write. And to them they look up to the law and the policy makers and they really fear for their rights and for their life.”

Stigma
The ICW carried out their research in the northern part of Namibia, but the organisation believes that many more HIV-positive women across the country are having their ability to reproduce terminated against their will. However, getting the women to admit that they can no longer have children is seen as a bigger stigma than telling their partner that they have HIV. Such is society’s emphasis on raising a family, that a woman who can no longer bear children is likely to be rejected by her husband and society.

The IWC hopes that it can raise enough funds to carry out a much wider study in Namibia and to help women to understand what it means. It also hopes to bring 15 or more cases to court next year.

Esther Sheehama says it won’t be easy for many of the women who have been affected by sterilisation to come forward.

“If you have to go to court then people have to know about your HIV status, and obviously the media has to be there. For us who are already HIV positive it is not a problem at all.  But for those who didn't disclose their HIV status there is a very big problem, and they need to be prepared emotionally and psychologically.”

Listen to a Newsline interview with Esther Sheehama:

Photo by on-tol-o-gy (at flickr.com)