In response to increasing international coverage of the problem of forced sterilizations in Uzbekistan, the state-sponsored media is fighting back with a series of propagandistic pieces portraying generous maternal policies in Uzbekistan, claiming the government is promoting maternal health care and reducing the number of abortions.
In a story published July 17 based on reports from human rights groups, victims and health officials, Associated Press said that Uzbek women are accusing the Uzbek state of mass sterilizations. Women reported that they had been pressured to have the procedure ostensibly for health reasons.
In March, EurasiaNet reported on Tashkent's pursuit of a forced sterilization policy, citing an Uzbek civil society activist who spoke on condition of anonymity, who said increasing numbers of women in rural areas appear to be giving birth at home, due primarily to spreading concerns about forced sterilization in hospitals. Women with three or more children, mainly in rural areas, are being targeted for sterilization procedures, the activist said, saying instructions were given verbally to doctors.
The Expert Working Group, an Uzbek independent think-tank, issued a statement March 2 contending that Uzbek doctors are under orders to perform at least two sterilizations per month, and to pursuade women to keep their husband and relatives out of the decision-making process.
Uzbekistan has a population of 27 million people, with particular density in the Ferghana Valley. In 2007, the UN Committee Against Torture also cited "a large number" of reported cases of forced sterilization and removal of reproductive organs by Uzbek women, often after cesarean sections.
With increasing negative press coverage, the Uzbek government has not surprisingly fought back with a series of upbeat press stories claiming to be concerned for maternal health care.
Last month, the official press boasted that a new government resolution signed by President Karimov July 22 was helping "pregnant women living in rural areas with special complexes of invigorating multivitamins," EurasiaNet reported. The $5 million program intended to help prevent birth defects had some ambitious rhetoric: "Healthy Mother – Healthy Child program and the Year of the Harmoniously Developed Generation" in 2010.
The Uzbek Health Ministry says that the use of voluntary surgical contraception is not the dominant form of contraception and is used on a voluntary basis after consultation with a specialist and written consent of both spouses, says gazeta.uz. With this claim, the government digs itself in deeper, as it implies that a woman is not free to make reproductive decisions by herself. NGOs report that sometimes doctors in fact keep family members uninformed, or men abandon wives if they find out they have opted for sterilization.
And while the Uzbek government readily supplies the figures that In 1991, only 13 percent of women made use of contraception, but today, the number is greater than 67 percent, officials decline to provide exact numbers of women who opted for "surgical contraception," as sterilization is euphemistically described. The government says about 61.9 percent of women of fertile age use the IUD, and 34 percent use birth control pills or hormonal injections, implying the rest use barrier methods.
Meanwhile, reports to Uzbek NGOs by women particularly in the provinces belie the happy portrait, as some women insist they have been coerced, or even that the procedure has been performed without their knowledge during surgery. Doctors who do not fulfill the government's forced-sterilization order are reportedly subject to a variety of punishments, EurasiaNet.org reported, citing the Expert Working Group.
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