Background

The International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS and Namibia Women's Health Network began documenting this practice in 2007 following a series of workshops they held with young HIV positive women. At the workshop, women started speaking about how in one case a woman went to the hospital to give birth and while being wheeled into the operation theatre, she was asked to sign a stack of papers among them a consent form for sterilization. There are cases documented from as far back as 2001 and yet no one realized this was happening until now. 

The Legal Assistance Centre with assistance from the ICW and its partners are taking the case of three such women to court in Namibia. Women who have been allegedly coercively sterilized have sued the Government of Namibia for a violation of their constitutional rights to dignity, be free from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, found a family and be free from discrimination.