In Peru, the investigation into forced sterilizations opens to criminal proceedings and the difficulties are already accumulating

LETTER FROM CUSCO

After more than twenty years of waiting, the case of the forced sterilizations of thousands of women in the 1990s – carried out as part of a plan to reduce the birth rate – has come before the criminal justice system. The investigation should last eight months and could finally lead to the opening of a “historic” trial to judge the former tenors of health policy under the presidency of Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).

A first victory, but not the end of the obstacles for victims seeking justice. Thursday, March 3, for the start of the hearings, two of the main alleged authors of this policy, former health ministers, did not appear. They are Marino Costa Bauer (1996-1999) and Alejandro Aguinaga (1999-2000), current deputy in Congress. “It is not surprising because the defendants have always done everything possible to delay justice, indignant Maria Esther Mogollon, president of the association of victims of forced sterilizations. This is intolerable and humiliating for the victims who have been waiting for justice for so many years! »

The legal case, heavy and complex, has already seen many twists and turns. While it has been dismissed four times over the past two decades, the announcement of the start of the judicial inquiry, at the end of December 2021, after sixteen years of preliminary investigation by the prosecution, had been a huge relief for the victims. They are 1,307 plaintiffs registered to testify in this procedure – a majority of women, but there are also about ten men. In total, 2,000 people have filed a complaint and more than 8,000 are registered in the Register of victims of forced sterilizations (Reviesfo), kept by the Ministry of Justice since 2016.

Poor Native American women

In the second half of the 1990s, an estimated 300,000 women and 22,000 men were sterilized under a birth control program meant to promote “voluntary surgical contraception”. The official goal was to reduce poverty and promote economic growth.

Nevertheless, many reports bear witness to a brutal implementation, which primarily targeted poor women of Amerindian, Quechua or Amazonian ethnicity. At least 18 have died, according to health ministry figures. A systematic and racist policy, “who sought to fulfill objectives and quotas”, insisted Maria Ysabel Cedano, lawyer for victims, at a press conference on March 2.

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