Public health facilities coerce women living with HIV into sterilisation, a conference convened by the Department of Social Development heard this week.

“Many women, especially, those living in rural communities are being discriminated against,” Khensani Motileni, of Women’s Legal Centre, told the sexual and reproductive justice conference.

“They do not often have equitable access to basic services such as water, food and medical treatment.”

The conference, held at Diep in Die Berg in Pretoria east on March 22, brought together policymakers, civil society organisations, researchers and youths to promote sexual and reproductive justice.

Motileni said some women were being sterilised in public health institutions without being given alternative birth control measures.

She said this coerced sterilisation harmed many women in rural communities, including those who were pregnant and living with HIV or other chronic disease.

“The legacy of forced sterilisation is rooted in forms of cultural and institutional power. The government and other role players have failed to provide basic services. There is a lack of accessible and dignified health services.

South Africa does not have a women’s health policy and therefore cannot make informed and adequate provision for women’s health,” she said.

Motileni said there was also a need for policy development and budget allocation for women’s health.

According to Jacques van Zuydam, the chief director of population and development at the Department of Social Development, “any form of coerced sterilisation and any other invasions of bodily autonomy without expressed permission from the client is illegal in South Africa”.

Van Zuydam urged victims of such practices to report them to the authorities.

Amongst its objectives, the three-day conference sought to make recommendations on how to facilitate and strengthen sexual and reproductive justice across all spheres of government.

Recently the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) reported that it its investigation uncovered that women were coerced into reproductive sterilisation as early as 2015.

The report detailed the various violations including:

– women were not properly informed and counselled before sterilisation while some were not informed in a language they understood

– women were not given enough time to make a decision

– some women were sterilised while receiving a Caesarian section

– some women were made to consent to the procedure under distress of dire pain