I have travelled a long way looking for justice. They sterilised me by force
“They falsified the signature of my husband and it does not match his identity card.” says Felicitas from Cuzco. “They lied that they authorised the sterilisation that took place without my consent. I never accepted. They put me under anaesthetic and completed the ligation. I seek justice and truth. Listen to me.”
The events she describes took place twenty years ago, but Felicitas may begin to see justice and truth this month when the State Prosecutor decides whether to send to court the case of the allegedly forced sterilisation of hundreds of thousands of women in the poorest regions of Peru.
The Prosecutor, in the Peruvian legal system, decides whether there is sufficient evidence for a case to proceed to trial. The Prosecutor found in 2014 that there was no evidence of then President Alberto Fujimori or his Ministers being responsible for the illegal sterilisations, and closed the case in January 2015. Lawyers argued successfully that this closure was irregular and the case was re-opened in May 2015. The present Prosecutor is due to rule in February if the events will be assessed in court.
Esperanza Huayama from Huancabama says she was one of the victims. “They sent a committee from Lima to each village saying they were going to help us with food, vitamins and medicines. Then they made me go to a clinic, they put me in a robe and anesthetised me. I was three months pregnant, and they knew it. I said don’t take out my son, I would rather die with him.”
“They did the same to many women that day – a hundred at least. First they offered medicine, but then we were treated like animals. They closed the health post then they took us all the ladies in ambulances to different places. Some women died, others were abandoned by their husbands. Everything was a disgrace.”
In October Amnesty began an International campaign to get the Peruvian government to bring to justice those responsible for forced sterilisations. And in November 2015 President Humala, with just five months left in power, issue a decree that the issue should be dealt with as “a matter of Peruvian national interest”.
More witnesses have recently come forward. In October 2015 a group of 12 doctors in Piura, northern Peru, claimed they had been carrying out 2 sterilisations, with informed consent, each day, in 1997. They were then told they must sterilise 250 women over a four day period. “it was absurd that such a small clinic with one operating theatre could do this,” said anaesthetist Rogelio Del Carmen. “It is State policy” he was told. The anaesthetist and other doctors refused to take part but the mass sterilisation went ahead.
“A place was organised to do these operations with a local anaesthetic in the skin, which is not enough for this procedure. I was the only anaesthesiologist, but I did not participate. That explains why I heard women screaming. I warned the head of the department that this was not correct. But he replied that sterilisations in the Obstetrics department were none of my business. However, sometimes I was called in because there were patients in severe pain. It was very painful stuff. Shortly afterwards I resigned from the Ministry of Health.”
In 1995 the government of Albert Fujimori established a Family Planning and Reproductive Health Programme which ran for six years. This was in fact a programme of sterilisation directed at poor rural Quechua speaking communities, in which over 300,000 women had their “tubes” tied. In 2000 Fujimori fled to Japan when a TV channel aired videos showing the head of his Intelligence, negotiating bribes with other politicians.
A few years after Fujimori’s fall, an Investigative Committee set up by Congress found that Fujimori had initiated the National Population Programme in 1991 in order to reduce the rate of population growth to 2%, specifically targeting low income groups. Unsatisfied with the speed of progress, he began his second term in 1995 by amending the law to make sterilisation legal. Thereafter followed, according to the Committee’s report, “aggressive campaigns that led almost exclusively to sterilisations in the poorest regions of the country”.
According to witnesses before the Committee, women were misinformed about the procedure, operated on without written consent, and in some cases taken by force and sterilised without anaesthetic. The Government was supported in its campaigns technically and financially by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations Foundation for Population Activities (UNFPA).
From 1993 to 1999, according to Peru Ministry of Health data, 314,000 women were sterilised. At its peak in 1997 more than 100,000 women had their ligatures severed.
Alberto Fujimori’s daughter, Keiko Fujimori, is currently topping the polls in the run-up to the 2016 Presidential elections. She ran unsuccessfully in 2011, promising to pardon her father if she became president. “There have already been several investigations into these matters,” replied Keiko Fujimori to journalists during the present campaign, “and they have found that the personal responsibility lies with doctors who did not follow the protocols”.
Keiko Fujimori became First Lady of the Peruvian State in 1994, aged 19, after her father Alberto Fujimori divorced his wife, and she continued in the role until 2000 when her father fled to Japan.
The investigations into events during the final decade of the twentieth century in the rural highlands of Peru have taken many years. The decade included widespread atrocities perpetrated by terrorist groups and by the army. Those too, have been the subject of investigation by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that travelled from town to town taking witness statements throughout the country before concluding that some 70,000 people had been murdered, mostly poor, rural, Quechua speaking people. The Fujimori government in its later stages was increasingly authoritarian, and the country had become accustomed to other agents of government such as the police and army perpetrating human rights abuses with impunity.
Several prosecutions of President Fujimori have come to court, in the eight years since he was extradited to Peru from Chile. He has been sentenced to 25 years for overseeing a death squad responsible for killings and kidnappings, for seven years for misusing state funds, and to six years for abuses of power. Other cases are pending. The forced sterilisations are further down the list.
“They called me a rabbit and did not respect my right to decide if I wanted more children. I went to the local health centre looking for healthcare for my daughter and left ligatured from a hospital, after they took me there from the centre in my community. A lot or our women were deceived. We wanted to escape and they would not let us go.” Eustaquia – Huancabamba.
“I have travelled a long way looking for justice. They sterilised me by force. I asked for medicine for my headache. They gave me an injection and did not tell me anything. I woke up sterilised. I did not know anything nor my family nor my husband. I want sanctions on those responsible.” Livia Puma – Cuzco.
“I was 28 years old. They took me to hospital with my daughter born 15 days earlier. They sterilised me without my consent.” Rute – Cuzco.
“I went to give birth to my daughter in the hospital and ended up sterilised without my consent. I woke with a cut in my belly and did not know what had happened. They told me it was a simple cut but this cut scarred my life. I can never again have children. They violated my human rights. I want justice.” Florereia – Cuzco.
“I took my three-year old little boy to the health post at Compone for a check-up. From there together with five women they took us to the health post at Anta. They changed our clothes and operated on us without any consultation. We have been enecriadas.” Juana – Anta – 1995