Ethiopian women who immigrated to Israel say they were told they would not be allowed into Israel unless they agreed to be injected with the long-acting birth control drug Depo Provera, reports Haaretz

The women say that while waiting in transit camps in Ethiopia prior to immigration they were placed in family planning workshops where they were force into agreeing to the injection. The charge was denied by both Israel’s Joint Distribution Committee, which ran the clinics, and the Health Ministry.

The birth rate among Israel's Ethiopian immigrant population has dropped nearly 20 percent in 10 years.

According to the report, the women were given the Depo Provera injections in the family planning workshops in transit camps, a practice that continued once they reached Israel. The women who were interviewed for the investigation reported that they were told at the transit camps that having many children would make their lives more difficult in Ethiopia and in Israel, and even that they would be barred from coming to Israel if they refused.

The Joint said in a response to "Vacuum" that its family planning workshops are among the services it provides to immigrants, who learn about spacing out their children's birth.

The Israeli Health Ministry on its part said it did not "recommend or try to encourage the use of Depo Provera, and that if these injections were used it was against our position. The Health Ministry provides individual family counseling in the framework of its well baby clincs and this advice is also provided by the physicians of the health maintenance organizations."

The Jewish Agency, which is responsible for Jewish immigration from abroad, said in response that it takes a harsh view of any effort to interfere in the family planning processes of Ethiopian immigrants, adding that "while the JA has never held family planning workshops for this group in Ethiopia or at immigrant absorption centers in Israel, the immigrant transit camp in Gondar, as the investigation noted, was previously operated by other agencies."