[Kevin Rainbow]

Were ‘mass hysterectomies’ performed on detainees at a US immigration centre?
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FactCheck verdict

Many media outlets and high-profile social media users have claimed that women at a US immigration centre in Georgia are subjected to “mass hysterectomies” or “mass sterilisation” without their full informed consent.

The whistleblower at the centre of the story says she estimates 20 women had hysterectomies at the Irwin County Detention Center over six years.

If that’s correct, it doesn’t look as though the rate of hysterectomies in the Irwin County Detention Center is higher than the general population. But this is a back-of-the-envelope calculation and we would need to know a lot more to make an accurate comparison.

From what we’ve seen, all the allegations are against a single doctor (he denies them). Two women say they were given hysterectomies that may not have been necessary. If they are true, they are tragedies and scandals for the victims.

But at time of writing, we have not seen evidence that hysterectomies were happening at the facility on a “mass scale”. So for now, we should be careful about using the language of “mass hysterectomies” and “mass sterilisation”, which harks back to several shameful chapters in America’s recent past in which thousands of predominantly black women and girls were forcibly sterilised by the state.

The case has been referred to the government watchdog that oversees US immigration authorities.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factch...gration-centre