By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
New Delhi: Several civil society groups came together to protest outside the Chhattisgarh Bhavan in the national capital on November 20, Thursday in the afternoon against what they termed as “cynical and callous apathy of the State and Central Governments.”
The Chhattisgarh Government continues to deny any responsibility for the deaths of 15 women in a sterilization camp. Both the Central and State Governments seem “unmoved by this crime, and are protecting the perpetrators and refusing to review the policy regime that makes India’s women vulnerable to such deaths,” the protesters, comprising of several organisations alleged.
Through Chhattisgarh Bhavan they also sent a memorandum to the Governor of Chhattisgarh on alleged “Inaction and apathy of State and Central government towards Chhattisgarh sterilization deaths.”
The deaths of 15 women following surgery in a sterilization camp in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, have shocked people across the world. Some 50 women are struggling for their lives; many children have been rendered motherless.
In the memorandum submitted, civil rights groups alleged that this seems to be merely the surface of the horror story of healthcare and women’s reproductive rights in Chhattisgarh and India.
Hinting at some sort of nexus, they wrote, “We demand to know why the Chhattisgarh Government continues to protect the Health Minister, who is culpable on many counts. The killer camps were in his constituency. Poisonous drugs were procured from a company that had been charged with producing sub-standard drugs two years ago. The Minister cannot claim to be unaware of this fact since he himself had informed the State Assembly of this, in March 2012. Rusty implements were used during the surgery.”
Pointing that 83 surgeries were performed in haste in a mere 5 hours, with operations being conducted on the floor and in insanitary conditions, they added, “ This is not merely a matter of medical negligence by a single doctor. The race to perform large numbers of sterilizations is fuelled by the targets illegally set by the health authorities in the state, in violation of the norms that mandate against target-driven sterilizations.”
“It is a shame that in Chhattisgarh, the poorest women and communities have no access to regular healthcare and hospitals – and instead are left at the mercy of periodic camp-based healthcare, where they lose eyes in cataract camps, uteruses in hysterectomy camps, and lives in sterilization camps,” they further noted.
They held both the state and central government responsible for the negligence and accused them of alleged cover up, demanding resignation of both the health Minister and Chief Minister of the state.
Protesters have put forward following demands:
1. Action against Chhattisgarh’s Health Minister Amar Agarwal and resignation of the Chief Minister Raman Singh.
2. An independent enquiry into the Bilaspur deaths as well as sterilization camps and family planning policies in Chhattisgarh, by a team of community health experts.
3. A moratorium on the Indian Government’s policy of sterilisation as a form of family planning, and the use of sterilisation targets (which although officially discontinued, are still set by health authorities and Governments in India)
4. A review of the ‘family planning/population control’ framework.
5. Expansion of women’s access, through informed choice, to a range of safe methods of contraception, with non-invasive methods being promoted instead of surgery
The memorandum was signed by following individuals and groups:
Shabnam Hashmi, ANHAD
Jagmati Sangwan, AIDWA
Kavita Krishnan, AIPWA
Annie Raja, NFIW
Ashutosh Kumar, JNUSU
Om Prasad, AISA
Nisha Sharma, YWCA of India
Zulaikha, Shambhvi, Chhattisgarh
Coalition Against Two Child Norm
NAMHHR, SAHYOG
Aruna Sinha, Action India
Nibedita, NCTCN,
Shilpi, WPC
Sagolsen Paul, Forum to Engage Men
Navaid Hamid,, MOEMIN
Chinmaya, BAPSA
Renu, Stree Mukti Sangathan
Sama
Mansi, JTSA
TISS
DSU
JSSF
NOMOre