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Even today, forced sterilisation of women is legal in nearly half of the EU-27 member states (Photo: Unsplash)

Feature

The voices of EU's forcibly-sterilised disabled women

Even today, forced sterilisation of women is legal in nearly half of the EU-27 member states (Photo: Unsplash)

"I'll never have kids," Gaelle (now 45 years old), a woman with an intellectual disability, confessed just one day after she was forcedly sterilised in a Belgian hospital over twenty years ago.

"I was operated on yesterday, my parents forced me to," her 24-year-old self sobbed to a member of the organisation 'Mouvement personne d'abord', who left an awareness talk on sexual relations and children after Gaelle to ask her what was wrong.

When found outside the building, she was cr...

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Author Bio

Paula joined EUobserver in January 2023 and left for Euronews in 2024. Previously she worked for the Spanish online newspaper El Confidencial, where she covered mainly economic and financial affairs.

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