AN INCONCEVABLE CRIME

============================================

Twe
et

Follow @PalestinePlus

<

Homet
Opinio

Israel’s patronizing and inhumane treatment of Ethiopian women is nothing new.

By Efrat Yardai | Dec.11, 2012 | 11:15 AM | 24
It’s hard to believe, but in Israel, in 2012, Ethiopian women are forced to receive injections of the Depo-Provera contraceptive. This injection is not a commonly prescribed means of contraception. It is considered a last resort and is usually given to women who are institutionalized or developmentally disabled. According to an investigation for journalist Gal Gabay’s “Vacuum” documentary series shown on Israeli Educational Television, it is also given to many new immigrants from Ethiopia.

This is not the first or only case where the state has interfered in the lives of people who have limited means of resistance. And as in other cases, the system that carried out this policy is extremely sophisticated, so it is hard to find a specific person who is responsible for it or a signed and written order. But the televised investigation, conducted by researcher Sava Reuven, found that more than 40 women have received the shot.

Depo-Provera has a shameful history. According to a report by the Isha L’Isha organization, the injections were given to women between 1967 and 1978 as part of an experiment that took place in the U.S. state of Georgia on 13,000 impoverished women, half of whom were black. Many of them were unaware that the injections were part of an experiment being conducted on their bodies. Some of the women became sick and a few even died during the experiment.

There are many examples across the world of efforts to reduce birthrates among disadvantaged populations that lack the resources and the capability to resist. During the 1960s, the U.S. was concerned by the increase of the population in Puerto Rico. In 1965, it was reported that 34 percent of Puerto Rican mothers aged 20 to 49 had been sterilized.

The injections given to Ethiopian women are part and parcel of the overall Israeli attitude toward this wave of immigrants. During the 1980s and 1990s, thousands of Ethiopian Jews spent months or years in transit camps in Ethiopia and Sudan. Hundreds died en route to Israel simply because a country that is supposed to be a safe haven for Jews decided the time wasn’t right, they couldn’t all be absorbed together or they weren’t Jewish enough – who had heard of black Jews?

In transit camps today, future immigrants enter a horrifying bureaucratic entanglement, which gives them the burden of proving they are worthy of arriving in Israel. As in the past, those who arrive here are not quickly released from the grasp of state institutions. They continue to receive “treatment” in absorption centers, where the children are sent to religious boarding schools and included in special education frameworks, while the parents stay in ghettos and the women continue to receive injections. We are told there is no choice. The repressive, racist and paternalistic policies continue unhindered – policies that are supposedly in the best interests of the immigrants, who don’t know what is best for them.

This policy of total control over their lives, which starts while they are still in Ethiopia, is unique to immigrants from that country and does not allow them to adjust to Israel. Using the excuse that they need to be prepared for a modern country, they are brainwashed and made to remain dependent on the state absorption institutions.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee said the claims the women made in the investigation were nonsense. This reminded me of some other women who spoke nonsense, such as the mothers of the kidnapped Yemenite children or the Moroccan women who underwent “treatment” for ringworm. To this day, their words are dismissed as nonsense. If they tried to sterilize me or take my children away, I think I would be talking nonsense too.

The writer is a group instructor for women of Ethiopian origin on behalf of the Achoti – Women in Israel organization and served as a spokeswoman for the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews.

CORRECTION: The sub-headline of this article was changed due to an editing error.

Home
Blogs
Routine Emergencies

Ethiopian women and birth control: when a scoop becomes a smear
The more the story about Ethiopian women who were given birth control shots was repeated, the more warped and distorted it became.

By Allison Kaplan Sommer | Jan.30, 2013 | 2:20 PM | 18
The story of the dramatic drop in the birthrates of the Ethiopian Israeli community over the past decade and why it happened was a story that needed to be told. Those on the ground who work with the Ethiopian community who first observed and researched the phenomenon and Gal Gabai, the excellent television journalist whose show “Vacuum” broke the story to the Israeli public, deserve credit for pulling the story out of the realm of rumor and shadows.

However - as in the game of telephone, when the more a story is repeated, the more warped and distorted it becomes - the international coverage of this scandal is transforming a tale insensitivity, cultural condescension and, yes, perhaps a certain level of racism, into some kind of villainous genocidal plot of sterilization aimed at ethnic and racial cleansing.

What the original television program uncovered is an insensitivity to a traditional culture and imposing Western norms in what likely began as a well-meaning attempt to help families make an easier adjustment to the shock that was ahead of them when they moved to Israel and once they arrived. The stories women told painted a picture of being coaxed and strongly convinced that they should subject themselves to a Depo-Provera birth control shot every three months, without being offered other methods of family planning. They also recounted being told in educational workshops that Israelis had “small families” and that having many children in Israel would “make their life difficult.” Some said they were led to believe they would not be permitted to emigrate if they did not submit to the shots, others said that their objections to receiving them were ignored. Some women said they weren’t aware the shots were birth control - they thought they were vaccinations, and others said their complaints about disturbing side effects were ignored.

It is the latest chapter in the history of clumsy stumbles the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government have made in their enterprise to move communities to Israel. There is no large group of immigrants to Israel, particularly from Asia and Africa, who don’t have legitimate complaints of treatment of bureaucratic indifference and institutional inflexibility, laced with a heavy dose of cultural superiority and both hidden and outright racism.

Yes, indeed, the television story and the research on which it was based, found evidence that Ethiopian Jewish women, both while in transit in Addis Ababa preparing to emigrate, and after they arrived in absorption centers in Israel, were strongly encouraged to use Depo-Provera as a form of birth control. In Israel and other Western countries, this birth-control method tends to be restricted to those who are not mentally competent or responsible enough to take a daily birth-control pill. These Ethiopian women were clearly not encouraged strongly enough to consider other means of family planning, both when they began the injections in Ethiopia, and certainly later after they immigrated to Israel, their family planning practices should have been reassessed, not automatically continued. And certainly there was not enough careful examination of each individual medical case, causing suffering among those women with medical conditions exacerbated by the Depo-Provera.

When the story first came out as a result of the “Vacuum” broadcast in early December, it sparked a flurry of finger-pointing in various directions, as the JDC and the government all denied any executive decision to put Ethiopian women on Depo-Provera, and said if any such policy existed, the other guy must have done it.

The Jewish Agency, which is responsible for Jewish immigration from abroad, said in response to the first report that it takes a harsh view of any effort to interfere in the family planning processes of Ethiopian immigrants, adding that "while the JA has never held family planning workshops for this group in Ethiopia or at immigrant absorption centers in Israel, the immigrant transit camp in Gondar, as the investigation noted, was previously operated by other agencies."

Then, this past week, there was a ‘gotcha!’ moment, as far as the health ministry was involved.

As reported in Haaretz “a government official has for the first time acknowledged the practice of injecting women of Ethiopian origin with the long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera. Health Ministry Director General Prof. Roni Gamzu has instructed the four health maintenance organizations to stop the practice as a matter of course ... Gamzu’s letter instructs all gynecologists in the HMOs "not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provera for women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.”

Gamzu’s action took place after a group of six human rights organizations requested that the Ministry “adopt a number of steps to ensure the practice will not continue” including “making enquiries about the medical condition of each woman and whether the drug is suitable for her circumstances, not to provide any injections without informing the women of the possible side-effects of the drug and providing information about alternative contraceptive methods” and “that a note be included in the patient’s medical records recording that conversation took place” and urged Gamzu “consider examining the background to the practice and to collect updated figures on the use of the contraceptive.”

It is was an appropriate action to take and his quick response was in order, so as to bring birth control in the Ethiopian community should be in line with the rest of Israeli women, making them in control of their decisions with full information as to the alternatives.

But the story has taken on a life of its own internationally. The words “forced” and “coercion” are being thrown around in the international coverage. Images of Mengele-level persecution of clueless, helpless victims being marched by force from camps to clinics to receive their injections have been conjured up, as the story has travelled from the Israeli media to the national mainstream media, to international and niche publications. The headlines run from the oversimplified to deliberately twisted:

Israel admits forcing birth control shots on Ethiopian women

Israel: Discrimination against Ethiopian Jews

Israel coerced Ethiopian women into taking contraceptive jabs

Israel Admits “Shameful” Birth Control Drug Injected in “Unaware” Ethiopian Jews

The most hostile coverage refers inaccurately to “sterilization” - conveniently ignoring the fact that Depo-Provera is a three-month birth control injection, for which women must voluntarily go to a clinic to receive the shots. It is insulting to the intelligence of Ethiopian women to believe that they did this for years at a time against their will. Certainly, if there was a nefarious plot to stop them from having babies, there would have been a more efficient way to do it.

I believe the women who told their stories to Gal Gabbai. I also believe that the vast majority of the Ethiopian women who received Depo-Provera were aware it was birth control and received it willingly, wanting to be in control of deciding when to get pregnant. And some of them - it is unclear how many - preferred being injected at a clinic rather than having to take pills daily in the presence of other family members - husbands or mothers or in-laws - who might disapprove of that decision. I also believe that those who did not want to receive the shots and truly wanted to become pregnant were smart enough to stop receiving them. At least some of the drop in these birthrate is attributable to access to birth control and control over their childbearing that these women wanted.

What is likely true - and needs to be urgently corrected, is that those who do want to practice birth control understand that there are alternative methods that are safer with fewer side effects, and that no ethnic group, native or immigrant is ever systematically given Depo-Provera again.

As for those who suffered from negligent treatment in the past, it is appropriate for each women’s stories to be taken seriously and investigated, and if, at any point they were told that their immigration depended on receiving a birth control injection, that person or agency be held responsible. At the very least, these women are owed the respect of an apology; at most, compensation for their pain suffering if they received Depo-Provera for years and truly didn’t understand they had a choice about it.

But sadly, I fear that the frontal assault and demonization of the agencies who worked tirelessly to bring Ethiopian Jewry to Israel will lead to even stronger denials and defensiveness, which will only bolster the paranoid and hate-fueled conspiracy theories.

The victim in all this will be the truth - and once again, the Ethiopian women themselves.

Home
News
National
Why is the birth rate in Israel’s Ethiopian community declining?
Women say that while waiting in transit camps in Ethiopia they were coaxed into agreeing to injections of long-acting birth control drugs.

By Talila Nesher | Dec.09, 2012 | 7:15 AM | 17
Women who immigrated from Ethiopia eight years ago say they were told they would not be allowed into Israel unless they agreed to be injected with the long-acting birth control drug Depo Provera, according to an investigative report aired Saturday on the Israel Educational Television program "Vacuum."

The women say that while waiting in transit camps in Ethiopia prior to immigration they were placed in family planning workshops where they were coaxed into agreeing to the injection - a charge denied by both the Joint Distribution Committe, which ran the clinics, and the Health Ministry.

"We said we won’t have the shot. They told us, if you don’t you won’t go to Israel And also you won’t be allowed into the Joint (American Joint Distribution Committee) office, you won’t get aid or medical care. We were afraid... We didn’t have a choice. Without them and their aid we couldn’t leave there. So we accepted the injection. It was only with their permission that we were allowed to leave," recounted Emawayish, who immigrated from Ethiopia eight years ago.

Emawayish was one of 35 women, whose stories were recorded by Sebba Reuven, that relate how they were coaxed and threatened into agreeing to receive the injectable birth control drug.

The birth rate among Israel’s Ethiopian immigrant population has dropped nearly 20 percent in 10 years.

According to the report, the women were given the Depo Provera injections in the family planning workshops in transit camps, a practice that continued once they reached Israel. The women who were interviewed for the investigation reported that they were told at the transit camps that having many children would make their lives more difficult in Ethiopia and in Israel, and even that they would be barred from coming to Israel if they refused.

The Joint said in a response to "Vacuum" that its family planning workshops are among the services it provides to immigrants, who learn about spacing out their children’s birth, "but we do not advise them to have small families. It is a matter of personal choice, but we tell them it is possible. The claims by the women according to which ’refusal to have the injection will bar them from medical care [and] economic aid and threaten their chances to immigrate to Israel are nonsense. The medical team does not intervene directly or indirectly in economic aid and the Joint is not involved in the aliyah procedures. With regard to the use of Depo Provera, studies indicate that is the most popular form of birth control among women in Ethiopia," the Joint said.

In its response to "Vacuum," the Health Ministry said it did not "recommend or try to encourage the use of Depo Provera, and that if these injections were used it was against our position. The Health Ministry provides individual family counseling in the framework of its well baby clincs and this advice is also provided by the physicians of the health maintenance organizations."

The Jewish Agency, which is responsible for Jewish immigration from abroad, said in response that it takes a harsh view of any effort to interfere in the family planning processes of Ethiopian immigrants, adding that "while the JA has never held family planning workshops for this group in Ethiopia or at immigrant absorption centers in Israel, the immigrant transit camp in Gondar, as the investigation noted, was previously operated by other agencies."