Hot On The Heels Of Fujimori Verdict, Investigation Into Mass Forced Sterilization Reopens

The trial of Peru’s ex-president, Alberto Fujimori, ended in early April with a guilty verdict for the elderly leader but many felt that justice still wasn’t served. Fujimori was sentenced for backing the murders of over 25 Peruvians but no mention was made of the 300,000 Peruvians who were coerced into sterilization procedures under one of his “health” programs.

The program, which ran from 1997 until 2000 was supposedly initiated to combat poverty and control Peru’s population but it’s been decried as a form of eugenics, since the majority of targeted women were from indigenous Andean communities. The sterilization procedure (tubal ligation) was often done without the knowledge or consent of the women, and was promoted by the national food aid program, “PRONAA” which traveled from village to village withholding food until the women agreed to submit to the procedure. Sometimes women who went into the hospital for a caesaran birth were also sterilized without their knowledge–doctor’s reasoned that the scar from the caesarean would hide the evidence.

Critics of Fujimori accuse him of genocide but he is not alone in the blame, nor is the crime so straightforward. For one, funds from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were used to support the program and USAID directors supposedly knew of the sterilization program. And to further complicate the moral question, the biggest advocates for Andean women’s rights tend to be right-wing, Christian groups from the U.S.

Coerced or forced sterilizations are wrong, but so is pushing your moral agenda on a population that’s already been lied to and manipulated. And honestly, is it really more babies that we need? In a country where an estimated 50% of the population (70% in rural areas) lives below the poverty line, more children simply make it harder for women to support their families. The Catholic church’s policy of forbidding all forms of birth control serves to intensify the dire situations of many women struggling to get by.

This video, produced by the Population Research Institute (PRI), claims to expose a conspiracy between US aid programs and Fujimori’s then-government to sterilize a large portion of the Andean population. The PRI tends towards a pro-life, pro-family line and believes that global overpopulation is a myth.

There’s truth here, and the horrifying human rights violations against the sterilized women deserve to be exposed and the perpetrators punished. But we find it creepy that the opposite of mass-sterilization seems to be a religious viewpoint that sentimentalizes motherhood without looking at the harsh realities of impoverished life and fails to mention alternate options like oh, say, education or non-permanent birth control.

The upside of the attention raised by these US groups is that more people are aware of the travesty, and the Peruvian government, perhaps encouraged by the global outcry, have re-opened the investigation into Fujimori and some of his health ministers. They’ve opened and closed it fitfully ever since the scandal first came to light in 1998, but there’s never been a conclusive verdict or report published. It’s unclear whether this iteration of the investigation will produce more satisfyingly conclusive results but the more we learn, the better.

Population Research Institute Home
Más sobre las esterilizaciones forzadas [Gran Combo Club]
Forced sterilization of indigenous case re-opened in Peru [Indian Country Today]