âWomen with red paint on their legs joined huge protests in Lima this week, to highlight the forced sterilisation of at least 300,000 Peruvians in the 1990s.â @guardian #StrongResilientIndigenous Women Worldwide #TogetherWeRise #ReclaimYourPower
âForced Sterilization and Impunity in Peruâ
In 1995, then-President Alberto Fujimori met with Peruvian feminists at the UN Womenâs Conference in Beijing and announced he would liberalize Peruâs strict laws on contraception by allowing women to have their tubes tied without getting their husbandsâ permission.  For Peruvian feminists, who had been fighting for more reproductive rights against powerful opposition from the Catholic Church and Opus Dei, this was a victory. They had no idea that the Fujimori government would use the new law to forcibly sterilize three hundred thousand indigenous women in the Andes between 1995 - 2000.
Timeline (from âForced Sterilization Haunts Peruvian Women Decades Onâ)
1995: President Alberto Fujimori modifies the General Population Law to incorporate voluntary surgical contraception (sterilisation) as part of the contraceptive methods on offer
1996: Reproductive Health and Family Planning Programme starts and Mamerita Mestanza dies following a tubal ligation she did not consent to
2001: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights awards a settlement to her family, opening the door to other cases
2003: Prosecutors start investigating allegations of forced sterilisations
2009: Investigation shelved for lack of evidence
2011: Investigation is re-opened
2014: Second probe shelved for lack of evidence
2015: Investigation re-opened again, Peruâs government creates a national registry of forced sterilisations
2016: Deadline for the investigation to conclude
âForced Sterilization of 272,000 Indigenous Women âNot a Crime Against Humanityâ: Public Prosecutorâ
âŠduring the presidency of Alberto Fujimori, 272,000 women and 22,004 men were sterilized between 1996 and 2000 as part of the National Reproductive Health and Family Planning Program. Over 2,000 women have testified that medical practitioners performed the procedures against their will. In many cases, the women did not speak enough Spanish to understand what they were consenting to and in some cases, providers did not even go through the motions of obtaining informed consent. Some women have shared stories of providers offering them money to have the procedure or intimidating them with threats or violence. Some women died due to complications and other women still suffer serious health complications today.
