Hours after Francisca gave birth to her first child, a midwife came into the recovery room and bluntly informed her that she would never have children again. She had been sterilized, unknowingly, during her cesarean delivery. Francisca was HIV-positive and only 21.She woke up with a healthy, HIV-negative baby boy, and sterile. She was diagnosed with HIV during routine exams early into her pregnancy in 2002. Throughout her pregnancy no one in the local hospital counseled her on what it meant to be HIV-positive, the potential risks of transmission to her baby or the possibility of sterilization, claims Francisca, which is not her real name because of stigma assocaited with HIV. “As I was about to give birth, the nurse scolded me, telling me I was irresponsible for having gotten pregnant with HIV, and asking why I hadn’t aborted. It was horrible,” she said. “Today women with HIV can decide if they want a normal delivery or a cesarean, depending on their condition. But many women, especially in rural areas, don’t know that. Doctors tell them their babies will be HIV-positive if they don’t undergo a cesarean, and they won’t do the cesarean if the women don’t agree to sterilization. That’s how they scare women,” said Sara Araya, head of the women's department at Vivo Positivo. Cases documented in 'Dignity Denied' reveal that some doctors and nurses were shockingly misinformed about even the methods of HIV transmission, inaccurately advising mothers to use separate eating utensils and bathrooms, misguidedly directing them not to touch their babies – or refusing to touch the women themselves – and, as in Francisca's case, coercing or forcing them to get sterilised. Government health officials did not respond to repeated requests for interviews. Coercive and forced sterilizations against HIV-positive women have also been reported in Mexico, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, South Africa and Namibia. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/chile/101028/forced-sterilization-hiv-aids http://reproductiverights.org/en/feature/dignity-denied-violations-of-the-rights… added by: rebelution07
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