•  prague
• Thursday, January 20, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Women’s rights in Eastern Europe have been put into the spotlight as a Hungarian midwife faces five years in prison for assisting with home births. Agnes Gereb, who has delivered thousands of babies in home births, is under house arrest on charges of negligent malpractice over five births she assisted at.

But the 58-year-old’s supporters claim that her case, which follows years of police harassment, is not just a display of power by a conservative and ignorant medical establishment desperate to keep control of a lucrative stream of income, but an attack on women’s rights. Donal Kerry, spokesman for the Hungarian Home Birth Community organisation which has been helping Gereb, told IPS: 'This is absolutely not just about Agnes but about the denial of women’s rights.

'Agnes is someone representing women’s rights — the right of a woman to where she has birth and how she has birth.'

Home births are legal in Hungary in theory but authorities have repeatedly failed to give midwives licences to practice outside hospitals while successive governments failed to define what is a safe environment to give birth in.

This means that in practice any midwife assisting a home birth can be charged with endangering a mother or child by working unlicensed in an unsafe environment. Gereb, a gynaecologist and globally-renowned home birth expert, has ignored the risk of criminal action though, to perform more than 3,500 home births over the last 20 years.

Her supporters say that she and others practising home births have faced campaigns of intimidation and harassment and that legislation on home births has left women with practically no option of giving birth at home. Gereb was arrested in October last year after she had to transfer a woman giving birth at home to a hospital.

She was held in custody, being subjected to repeated body cavity searches and kept in chains which led to bloody wounds on her body. Just before Christmas, and following international protests, she was released and placed under house arrest pending a court appearance.

Midwife associations around the world have been scathing of the authorities’ treatment of her. Some of her strongest support has come from midwives in other central and eastern European countries who say they are facing similar, if slightly less extreme, opposition to home births in the medical community.

In many countries across the region home births are allowed by law but heavily discouraged by local doctors. In some cases, such as Poland and the Czech Republic, they are not covered by state health insurance — putting the practice out of financial reach of many parents.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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