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Dawn Wooten, a nurse at Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, says authorities performed hysterectomies on detainees without their consent. /AP
Mexico said Monday it had requested more information from the U.S. on medical procedures given to migrants in detention centers, after allegations six detained Mexican women were sterilized without their consent.
Rights campaigners alleged two weeks ago that a number of hysterectomies had been carried out at a privately run detention center in the U.S. state of Georgia.
The Mexican ministry of foreign affairs said it sent a diplomatic note "to clarify the situation, requesting information on the medical attention that Mexican citizens receive" at the Irwin County Detention Center.
The ministry said that consulate personnel have interviewed 18 Mexican women who are or were detained at the center, none of whom "claimed to have undergone a hysterectomy," an operation involving the removal of all or part of the uterus.
The department added that seven of the women interviewed had been treated by the doctor accused of performing the sterilizations.
Another of the women said she had undergone a gynecological operation, although there is nothing in her file to support that she consented to the procedure.
Detained immigrants play soccer behind a barbed wire fence at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. February 20, 2018. /Reuters
The women interviewed did not deny that they had been "victims of bad practices for different reasons," the foreign ministry said.
Mexico announced last week it was investigating the allegations of sexual abuse and unauthorized sterilizations in the U.S. immigration detention centers, warning that such operations would be "unacceptable."
it had formally requested a report from U.S. authorities regarding alleged negligent practices in U.S. immigration detention centers, citing accusations of sexual abuse and unauthorized hysterectomies.
The request come after a complaint by a whistleblower nurse alleging that detainees in a Georgia immigration detention facility had improperly received hysterectomies and other gynecological procedures.
Project South, the Georgia Detention Watch, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network filed a complaint to the government on behalf of detained immigrants and the nurse.
U.S. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has called for an urgent investigation into allegations that at least 17 women were subjected to unnecessary gynecological procedures that she called "the most abhorrent of human rights violations."
(With input from AFP)
Source(s): AFP
