Since 1999, Uzbekistan’s ongoing, systematic forced sterilization program has affected tens of thousands of women. All women of reproductive age who have delivered two or more children are potential targets, but women with lower socio-economic status and representatives of ethnic minorities are more likely to be sterilized. Medical professionals throughout the country have come under pressure to perform sterilizations, and local health administrators attempt to outperform one another in order to please the central authorities.
Please join us for a discussion with BBC journalist Natalia Antelava, who will speak about a paper she has prepared for the Open Society Foundations on forced sterilization in Uzbekistan, along with Gwendolyn Albert, a human rights activist and researcher specializing in forced sterilization in the former Czechoslovakia.
