Wake Forest examines eugenics here and abroad

North Carolina's program of forced sterilization for social purposes shares an infamous place in history with the eugenics movement elsewhere, and a conference this week at Wake Forest University will examine those roots and current issues.

Angela Kocze, a Hungarian sociologist who is a visiting Fulbright scholar at Wake Forest, will talk about the forced sterilization of Romani women in Central and Eastern Europe. Romani women are referred to in Western Europe and the U.S. as gypsies.

The issue is more than just research to Kocze, a research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She is a Romani woman who has family members who were sterilized under the former Communist regime in Hungary.

"My argument is that the forced sterilization against Romani women is just one episode from the history of the persecution, violence and hostility against Roma in Europe," Koeze said. "The forced sterilization without the consent of Romani women is based on the assumption that Romani women's reproduction and fertility rate is higher than for non-Romani women."

The women were targeted for sterilization to decrease or eliminate...