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Ostrava, Czech Republic - "To be able to have children is so important for a woman," says Elena Gorolova. "When they took that away from me, I felt worthless. I completely lost my self-esteem."
Elena, a 47-year-old social worker, was sterilised against her will as a young woman. She is one of four Czech Roma women, all victims of involuntary sterilisation, who tell their stories in a theatre play called Stories that Have (Never) Begun. The play premiered last month in Ostrava, a city in the Czech Republic with a large Roma community.
The systematic sterilisation of Roma women without their full and informed consent [PDF] - aimed at bringing down their high birth rate - was state policy in the former Czechoslovakia during the communist era. It was officially abolished in 1993 [PDF], but according to the European Roma Rights Centre, it continued throughout the 1990s and 2000s, with the last known case in the Czech Republic taking place in 2007.
Finding a voice
For more than 10 years, Elena has been active in a group of Roma...