The department of health says it has never been its policy to force sterilisation on women living with HIV, adding that all family planning choices are voluntary and made with proper counselling.
Spokesperson Foster Mohale said the department provided sterilisation to both men and women in line with the Sterilisation Act if they are capable of consenting and are 18 years of age or older.
“No sterilisation may be performed in the absence of consent [except in exceptional circumstances, which are outlined in section 2 (3) of the act],” he said.
Mohale’s comments come as some South African women living with HIV demand redress for forced sterilisation.
The Her Rights Initiative (HRI) organisation is providing legal support to 104 HIV-positive women who were allegedly coerced into sterilisation.
HRI’s programme lead, Dr Sethembiso-Promise Mthembu, said the organisation filed a complaint with the UN in 2023, which wrote back in 2024 saying the women’s human rights and dignity were violated.
HRI was established to protect and defend the human rights of HIV-positive women in South Africa.
Monday marked World Aids Day.
Mthembu said HRI is representing 104 women from six provinces — KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Gauteng and Mpumalanga — in their fight for redress.
“These are women who were sterilised between 1997 and 2023, and almost all of them were between the ages of 17 and 32 at the time,” she said.
In 2015, HRI approached the commission for gender equality, which then started investigating the matter. The commission released its report in 2020, which found that the state had violated a combination of 26 laws, which include women’s rights to dignity, bodily integrity and security over their bodies.
It recommended, among other measures, that appropriate redress, restitution and rehabilitation be provided to the victims.
Mohale said the department is aware of the allegations and accepted the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) finding that some or all of “the complainants could not reasonably be said to have consented to the procedure given the current structure of the consent forms and the alleged unethical process/es used to obtain consent”.
He said the report contained 12 recommendations which the department is working to implement.
Mohale said family planning, which includes permanent methods of sterilisation for men and women and non-permanent methods, should be available as options for women or couples who want to avoid pregnancy.
“If the current medical condition of the woman is such that pregnancy would be dangerous and therefore inadvisable, the woman should be counselled accordingly and encouraged to use a family planning method.”
He said no woman or man should be coerced into accepting a family planning method.
The decision to use a family planning method should be taken by the woman or couple after being informed of the benefits and disadvantages of the various available methods.
He said attention has been paid to ensuring that the consent process meets the required standard.
Some of the steps implemented to strengthen the consent process include patients having to be counselled before signing the consent form by a person able to speak the same language as the patient.
“The component of the maternity care perioperative record [anaesthetic record] specific to consent has been revised to provide more space for the doctors to write the details of the procedure that will be done to the patient.
“This new anaesthetic record was finalised after extensive stakeholder consultation and is ready for use.
“A checklist for counselling before postpartum tubal ligation [sterilisation after giving birth] has been developed and implemented.”
He said individual cases where details have been furnished to the department are being reviewed in consultation with the relevant provincial department of health.
“Each province has been requested to investigate each case which occurred in their province and ensure that complaints are provided with reparative surgery for those who had post-surgery complications, post-trauma counselling and counselling and referral for those who are looking at adoption as an option for having children.”
He said the CGE initially provided the department with a list of 48 names — contact details and permission to access medical records were received from 24 complainants.
Sowetan
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