Women of Forced Sterilization Seek Justice

     The women of Peru are seeking justice against government and health officials who performed forced sterilization on them in an attempt to reduce the country's birth rate. The sterilization was a birth control program put in place by the Alberto Fujimori government, which saw the sterilization of 346,219 women and 24,535 men during the final years of his presidential mandate (1990-2000). The initiative was justified by officials who claimed that it lowered the number of mouths to feed which would help lift families out of poverty. BBC journalist Mattia Cabitza writes that while the former president is in prison his convictions relate to Peru's internal conflict, not his birth control campaign. (Full article available here)

     It was in Cuzco, a poor and predominantly Quechua-speaking area of the Peruvian highlands, where Aurelia Paccohuanca was abducted and forced into an ambulance by the same nurses who had told her that she would not be allowed to have any more children. Paccohuanca was then taken to a clinic where she was forced to strip off all of her clothes for the procedure. Many other women were lured to the clinics by a free medical checkup. When they arrived they were locked in a room where they were told a small incision would be made. If they refused their hands and feet were tied before they were injected with an anesthesia to put them under. 

In this photo Cuzco Congresswoman Hilaria Supa, left, speaks with Serafina Illa, centre, and Aurelia Paccohuanca after an interview in Lima, Peru. Illa and Paccohuanca were victims of forced sterilization during a 1995-2000 program created by then-President Alberto Fujimori. Paccohuanca now heads the Association of Women Affected by Forced Sterilization in Cuzco. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

    

     The communities that were targeted by the government and health officials were often poor, rural lands inhabited by Quechua-speaking women. While officials claim that there was no incentive in place for nurses and doctors to sterilize the patients others refute this statement, saying that quotas needed to be met in order for bonuses to be awarded to health workers.

     The program received support from several international donors including the United Nations Population Fund, Japan and the United States, as well as anti-abortion and feminist groups. This story is in the news again this week because the Peru government has reopened the investigation into what human rights groups call a crime against humanity. Lawsuits have been tried in court before but have been unsuccessful due to a lack of evidence and judicial loopholes. A number of the doctors and nurses still work in the healthcare profession, untouched by the charges that have been laid against them. 

     Those who were tortured have faced a life of pain and struggle. A large majority of Peru families rely on children to help work on fields and often a woman's worth is measured in her ability to both produce children and work on the land. After being sterilized many women are in too much pain to help their husbands or perform household chores, resulting in strained marriages and being ostracized from the community. 

     Many of the women are resilient in their journey for retribution and have formed the Association of Women Affected by Forced Sterilization, of which Paccohuanca leads the Cuzco branch. Paccohuanca is determined to carry on, "if they hadn't done that to me, the sterilization, I would have lived happily with my family. We are going to fight till the very end, until we get justice."          

        "There is one, and only one, thing in modern society more hideous than crime namely, repressive justice."

                      -Simone Weil