Between 1996-2000, over 300,000 women and 16,000 men where sterilized through a birth control policy applied during Alberto F. Fujimori's regime in Peru. Most of them came from economically deprived communities in the Highlands, Costand the Amazon regions of the country, where the majority of people do not speak Spanish, and where high rates of poverty, maternity and mortality can be found.
"Contraceptive Voluntary Surgery" (“Anticoncepción Quirurgica Voluntaria” or AQV’s in Spanish) was applied massively. At least 2,074 reports have been presented to the public prosecutor’s office. The victims/patients where taken to local medical centers with false information, pressuring and sometimes bribing them and their families in order to have the procedures done.Medical procedures where executed without consent, using fake signatures and un-translated consent forms or "agreements". Some testimonies also refer to unsanitary conditions in the medical centers, and to the poor post-operatory information that resulted in complications that lead to the death of some victims/patients.
Sterilizations were conducted without considering the patient's cultural background. The majority of victims/patients were indigenous people, with their own beliefs, cultural practices and customs.
In 2001, a brave group of 12 women from the town of Anta, in Cusco, denounced the violation of their rights and the intractable fact that they had being sterilized without their consent, for life. Fifteen years have passed since the first cases were reported. In March 2012 the case of Forced “Contraceptive Voluntary Surgery" was reopened by the public prosecutor's office for the third time. The case runs the risk of being dismissed, again.
Now is the time to bring this case to the forefront of public opinion and raise awareness of the need to respect, remember and bring justice to those affected by this vertical and discriminatory public policy that must not be repeated.