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The tragic details of cases of forced sterilization have come to light in Peru as victims in the northern region of San Martin spoke out for the first time in grisly interviews with local media published on Friday.
Testimonies of women who were sterilized against their will under the regime of former dictator Alberto Fujimori demonstrate that forced sterilization was widespread as a systematic policy and not a matter of isolated incidents.
Victims report being tricked and lied to by medical professionals to be forcibly sterilized by the thousands. Women from poor, Indigenous communities with multiple children were disproportionately targeted by the state campaign directed from the capital Lima.
Women paint their bodies to protest forced sterilization.
“I told them several times no, I didn’t want it, that I was pregnant, but they insisted. ‘It’s the government’s order,’ they told me,” Felipa Guerra Martinez, a victim of forced sterilization in the 1990’s, told the Peruvian daily La Republica. “Then they told me they were just going to a pregnancy check-up. But it was a hoax.”
Martinez added that she was sterilized against her will along with at least 100 other women.
RELATED: Peruvian Women Victims of Forced Sterilization Demand Justice
Another woman, Bertila Cachique Tuanama, told La Republica that she did not want to be sterilized despite the government’s orders. When she tried to run away, health professionals caught her and forced her to go to the hospital along with several other women.
“They tied my wrists to the table to sterilize me against my will,” said Tuanama. “I couldn’t defend myself. They didn’t do any exams, tests, psychology, and I didn’t sign anything.”
Another victim, Lady Davila Montenegro, said that she went to the hospital when doctors offered medical check-ups, but left with dozens of other women sterilized. She suffered serious infections after the unwanted operation, but never reported the violation due to lack of resources and fear of political persecution.
Sign reads: For the 300,000 women sterilized, no to Keiko.
Testimonies from women forcible sterilized in other parts of the country, including Lima, have previously been documented, but women in the northern towns of Sion, Shumanza, and Juanjui near the Huallaga River have recently joined in raising their voices against the historical abuse.
RELATED: Peru Denies Political Games with Forced Sterilization Registry
Over 270,000 women, mostly Indigenous from rural areas, were sterilized in Peru between 1995 and 2000. Investigations into widespread allegations opened in 2003, but has been repeatedly stalled under official claims of lack of evidence.
Fujimori, who oversaw the state policy, has always claimed that the women were sterilized voluntarily.
Fujimori’s daughter Keiko Fujimori, the presidential frontrunner in the country’s 2016 elections with the center-right Popular Force party, has also suggested that forced sterilizations never happened, saying victims will be compensated “if there were any.”
The forced sterilization case was reopened last year after human rights defenders appealed the decision that there was lack of evidence to continue the probe.
The investigation is expected to conclude in 2016 if there are no further delays.
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