Israel: A disturbing discrimination against Ethiopian Jews

After years of suspicion, the Israeli Ministry of Health has acknowledged that a contraceptive was administered to Ethiopian Jews before being allowed to migrate to Israel.

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The women were not informed about the risks involved.

A study released last December by IETV, an Israeli channel, has revived controversy over forceful administration of birth control medication on black Jews (Beta Israel community).

Interviewed by Gal Gabbai, an Israeli journalist, many women of Ethiopian descent vividly remember an odious blackmail which they were subjected to eight years ago.

For the right to immigrate to Israel, shots of Depo-Provera, a contraceptive that makes women sterile for three months, were administered to the women before their departure from transit camps in Ethiopia.

And again upon arrival in the Promised Land, the women say they were repeatedly jabbed with the same medication by representatives of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), an American NGO, assisted by the Israeli Ministry of Health.

At no time were the affected African Jewish migrants alerted to the risks incurred from the prolonged use of Depo-Provera, especially osteoporosis and premature births.

According to Gal Gabbai, the birth rate in the Beta Israel community had fallen by more than 50 percent in the past decade alone.

Until the broadcasting of a letter, in which the Ministry of Health was congratulating the JDC's imposition of the contraceptive to 30 percent of the African Jewish immigrants, the Jewish state had always denied the charges leveled against them.

Shaken by these revelations, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (Acri) has called for an explanation from the government.

The Ministry of Health has responded by requesting the immediate halt of contraception to the women, without their consent.

The recent events hint at an institutional humiliation and discrimination suffered by the 120,000 Ethiopian Jewish community since their installation in Israel in the early 1980s after they left Ethiopia.