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Uzbek women 'sterilised'

Excerpt:

According to rights groups, victims and health officials, Mrs Rakhimbayeva is one of hundreds of Uzbek women who have been surgically sterilised without their knowledge or consent in a program designed to prevent overpopulation from fueling unrest.

Human rights advocates and doctors say autocratic President Islam Karimov this year ramped up a sterilization campaign he initiated in the late 1990s. In a decree issued in February, the Health Ministry ordered all medical facilities to 'strengthen control over the medical examination of women of childbearing age.' The decree also said that 'surgical contraception should be provided free of charge' to women who volunteer for the procedure.

It did not specifically mandate sterilisations, but critics allege that doctors have come under direct pressure from the government to perform them: 'The order comes from the very top,' said Khaitboy Yakubov, head of the Najot human rights group in Uzbekistan.

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Just horrible!  How can this be happening on the same earth in this day and age!