Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia is under investigation regarding a claim by Dawn Wooten, one of the Center’s former nurses, that high numbers of forced sterilizations are taking place. Wooten stated that while some women may require a hysterectomy, “everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad.”
Nurses are responsible for protecting and promoting human rights, as stated in The Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements. This includes advocating for sexual and reproductive health care for all women.
Wooten explained in the complaint that several women detained at the facility told Wooten their uteruses had been removed without their consent, as covered by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, CNN, BBC, Fox News, and many other major news outlets.
Priyanka Bhatt is a staff attorney at Project South, a social justice organization, who said, “our coalition [Project South] has heard from several women who have either had a hysterectomy done or have talked to other immigrants who have had a hysterectomy done.”
Wooten explained that the doctor, Mahendra Amin, is referred to as “the uterus collector” as explained by The New York Times. “Everybody he [Amin] sees has a hysterectomy—just about everybody. He’s even taken out the wrong ovary on a young lady [detained immigrant woman]. She was supposed to get her left ovary removed because it had a cyst on the left ovary; he took out the right one. She was upset. She had to go back to take out the left and she wound up with a total hysterectomy,” Wooten explained in the complaint quoted by CNN.
Dr. Ada Rivera, the medical director of the ICE Health Services Corps, explained to The New York Times that the agency “vehemently disputes the implication that detainees are used for experimental medical procedures.” Records show only two women detained at the facility had received hysterectomies since 2018. The agency explained, “ICE takes all allegations seriously and defers to the (Office of the Inspector General) regarding any potential investigation and/or results. That said, in general, anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics, should be treated with the appropriate skepticism they deserve.”
The American Nurses Association (ANA) is the premier organization representing the interests of the nation’s 4.2 million registered nurses. On their online platform, ANA stated they were “appalled to hear of the alarming allegations at the Irwin County Detention Center related to high rates of hysterectomies performed on immigrant women under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.”
The complaint was filed by the organizations Project South, Georgia Detention Watch, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and the South Georgia Immigrant Support Network.
NPR reported that the American Immigration Lawyers Association and American Immigration Council called on Congress to investigate these allegations as well as other conditions and medical care concerns at ICE facilities.
Jamille Fields Allsbrook, the director of women’s health and rights at The Center for American Progress, said in a statement, “The United States has a long and sordid history of reproductive coercion and forced sterilization, particularly targeting Black, Latina, and Native American women as well as women with disabilities and incarcerated women.”
Fields Allsbrook continued, “These racist, eugenicist practices are often sanctioned by U.S. law, which to this day allows for the sterilization of anyone deemed ‘unfit.’ “
Irwin County Detention Center, the facility at the center of the complaint, is required to follow medical standards put in place by ICE in 2011, CNN reported. The standards state that “female detainees shall receive routine, age appropriate gynecological and obstetrical health care, consistent with recognized community guidelines for women’s health services.”
