Ethiopian women in Israel 'given contraceptive without consent'
Israel's health ministry is investigating claims that Ethiopian immigrants have unwittingly had Depo-Provera jabs for years
Israel's health ministry is investigating claims that Ethiopian women are being injected with a controversial contraceptive without their knowledge or consent. Thousands of Ethiopian women are said to be receiving shots of Depo-Provera every three months in Israeli clinics. The contraceptive stops menstruation and has been linked to fertility problems and osteoporosis.
Yaakov Litzman, Israel's deputy minister of health, who has previously denied the practice, will lead the inquiry, a spokesperson announced on Wednesday. The phenomenon was uncovered when social workers noticed the birth rate among Ethiopian immigrants halving in a decade. An Israeli documentary investigating the scandal was aired in December and prompted a popular outcry.
It revealed that women were started on a course of contraceptive jabs while still in transit camps in Ethiopia, some without being told they were being given birth control and many having no idea of the side-effects. When they eventually arrived in Israel, doctors continued the treatment unquestioningly. But the critical question remains unanswered as to who instigated the policy, with neither Israel nor Ethiopia willing to claim responsibility.
Sava Reuben, an Ethiopian who has lived in Israel since 1984, interviewed more than 35 women from her community for the film and found that 25 were still receiving contraceptive shots from healthcare providers. Reuben spoke to one woman who believed she had been given a flu vaccination and had no idea she had been injected with Depo-Provera.
Another was pregnant with her fifth child when she arrived in the transit camp, where she would live for seven years. The woman in her thirties told Reuben that officials had gathered together all the new mothers in the camp and told them they would be given Depo-Provera as it would be too difficult for them to give birth Israel.
"No, we didn't want to take it, we refused. We said we didn't want it," the unnamed woman recalls in the film. She agreed to the injections only because she was told her immigration to Israel would be blocked and she would receive no further healthcare in the camps if she refused.
"This happened to many, many other women," Reuben said.
More than 50,000 Ethiopian Jews have immigrated to Israel in the past decade. The fast-growing community has struggled against bias. In 1996, thousands rioted when it was discovered that the Israeli health ministry had destroyed all stocks of blood donated by Ethiopians on the grounds that it might be contaminated with HIV.
Israel's health ministry has strongly denied allegations that the injections are part of a policy to control the growth of the Ethiopian community. "The Israel ministry of health neither advises nor encourages the use of Depo-Provera injections and if they are being administered this is in despite of our view," a spokesperson said.
And yet Reuben claims to have discovered a letter from the health ministry to a clinic in Ethiopia in 2000 thanking doctors there for the large numbers of women they had treated with Depo-Provera. "Why are only Ethiopian women being given Depo-Provera in Israel? It's supposed to be a last-resort contraceptive. Israeli health authorities claim the injections are a cultural preference but in our culture, to have lots of children is to be rich," Reuben said.
"It is my opinion that this is a deliberate policy on the part of Israel. They are taking advantage of women who are weak because they are new to the country, do not understand the language and who traditionally respect authority. It makes me more than angry." Dr Mushira Aboodia, a gynaecologist working at Jerusalem's Hadassah medical centre, said the majority of Ethiopian women she had met received Depo-Provera injections.
"This is a policy that no one will admit. No one in Israel will take responsibility for the treatment in the camps but someone must have instigated it and it would not be in Ethiopia's interests to treat women preparing to leave the country," Aboodia said. "Something is definitely wrong here. I'm very glad the ministry of health will be investigating the issue. They will need to do a thorough job."
Guardian link
Tweede artikel:
Israel Admits Ethiopian Women Were Given Birth Control Shots
Health Ministry director general instructs all gynecologists in Israel's four health maintenance organizations not to inject women with long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera if they do not understand ramifications of treatment.
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 if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.” He also instructed physicians to avail themselves of translators if need be.
Gamzu’s letter came in response to a letter from Sharona Eliahu-Chai of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, representing several women’s rights and Ethiopian immigrants’ groups. The letter demanded the injections cease immediately and that an investigation be launched into the practice.
About six weeks ago, on an Educational Television program journalist Gal Gabbay revealed the results of interviews with 35 Ethiopian immigrants. The women’s testimony could help explain the almost 50-percent decline over the past 10 years in the birth rate of Israel’s Ethiopian community. According to the program, while the women were still in transit camps in Ethiopia they were sometimes intimidated or threatened into taking the injection. “They told us they are inoculations,” said one of the women interviewed. “They told us people who frequently give birth suffer. We took it every three months. We said we didn’t want to.”
Haaretz artikel
Zijn er nog steeds mensen die het belachelijk vinden om jezelf af te vragen of machthebbers mogelijk andere belangen hebben en misschien wel in staat zijn om vaccinaties te gebruiken voor hun eigen doeleinden?
[ Bericht 18% gewijzigd door Ali_boo op 14-10-2021 20:14:48 ]
TS moet toch wel eventjes kunnen laten zien wat zijn dagelijkse zoektocht over het hele internet nu weer voor allemaal oude hits opgeleverd heeft? Ik bedoel, het tweede artikel is pas 8 jaar oud!quote:Op donderdag 14 oktober 2021 19:07 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
De artikelen in de OP zijn bijna tien jaar oud.
Overigens ben ik wel benieuwd wat de toegevoegde waarde van het woordje 'zwarte' in de TT is.
Ja want vroeger deed men gemeen tegen elkaar, maar nu in de moderne wereld (8 jaar later) liegen en bedriegen mensen niet meer!quote:
De artikelen in de OP zijn bijna tien jaar oud.
probably_on_pcp dat de Duitsers media jaren '40 injecties aan gehandicapten hebben gegeven het dat we het VIERDE RIJK daarom niet mogen vertrouwen.Ja, ik sluit deze, maar ik vrees dat pop ons meteen om de oren mept met nog 7786767657 topics.quote:
De artikelen in de OP zijn bijna tien jaar oud.