Weer acht vrouwen gedood bij sterilisatie-campagne India

Eight women have died after undergoing sterilisation surgery at a health camp organised by the government in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Thirty other women were admitted to hospital and doctors have said several are in a serious condition. The tubectomy operations were carried out on Saturday on 83 women in Pendari village in Bilaspur district. Officials have denied negligence, but villagers allege the surgeries were done hurriedly. They said all the 83 women were operated on in just six hours by the sole doctor at the camp along with his assistant. (..) This is not the first time that sterilisation surgeries have been botched in India. In January 2012, three men were arrested in Bihar for operating on 53 women in two hours. The men had carried out operations in a field and without the use of anaesthesia. There have also been allegations that women from poor families are often paid to be sterilised. Many in the Indian government are worried about the size of the country’s population – it is expected to overtake that of China by 2030. Authorities have been promoting family planning for several decades now, trying to convince people to have smaller families. Sterilisation camps are sometimes organised to carry out mass vasectomy or tubectomy and authorities in several states have also offered incentives for couples volunteering for sterilisation. A nationwide campaign was abandoned in the 1970s, however, after complaints that thousands of men and women were forced into having the operation.

In Indian botched sterilisations kill eight women in Chhattisgarh (BBC)