Amid the stigma around HIV and a misguided attempt to prevent the spread of the virus, hundreds of healthcare workers in state hospitals have taken it upon themselves to push sterilisation as the only safe form of contraceptive. These sterilisations are at times carried out without the knowledge of pregnant mothers once they are wheeled into the hospital theatre for a cesarean procedure.

Next week, Special Assignment will track down several women who were sterilised without their knowledge. One distraught woman, Nokuthula Khathi, says she was only 19-years old when it happened to her. She only found out years later that she had been sterilised after she went for an unrelated medical check-up. In another instance Bonisile Mkhize, who is also a mother, tells a sad story of how she was forced by nurses and a doctor to sign a consent form shortly after she had collapsed and was already in active labour. She was told that she will not be assisted with the birth if she does not sign. Mkhize and a group of other women now want justice and are planning to take the Health Department to court with the help of NGO’s that are sympathetic to their cause.

Reproductive rights organisations have declared forced sterilisation as nothing less than medicalised violence against women. Without proper documentation and statistics on the number of sterilisation in state hospitals, the full extent of the phenomena where women’s reproductive rights are violated without any seeming repercussions, remains unknown.

will be broadcast on Thursday, 5 July at 21:00 on SABC3.