The artistic campaign to help 300,000 Peruvian women sterilised against their will

[Judi Lynn]

The artistic campaign to help 300,000 Peruvian women sterilised against their will

During the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of poor women in rural areas of Peru were forcibly sterilised, often without their knowledge - and ahead of the next presidential election, artists are helping campaigners finally find justice.

by Iain Aitch Published 24 November, 2014 - 11:39

The most stirring art has the ability to make us stop, think and even act, but a new interactive documentary made in Peru may just help decide the political future of the whole country. Created as a result of collaboration between the University of Bristol and London-based Chaka Studio, the Quipu project relays the story of a recent and very dark moment in Peruvian history. As many as 300,000 women in rural areas of Peru were possibly hoodwinked into being sterilised during the mid-to-late 1990s, all in the name of bringing an end to poverty.

The scale of the heinous medical campaign remained buried until recently, as the village areas most affected did not know that both neighbouring and far-flung areas had also been hit. Various legal cases on the issue brought against right-wing former-president Alberto Fujimori have hit the buffers and the local headlines, but the story has largely remained unknown outside the urban centres of Peru.

“I was working for Amnesty International in Peru in the 1990s and nobody knew this was going on,” says Matthew Brown of the University of Bristol. “Awareness has been growing in the last three years, partly because of our project and partly because of the efforts of victims groups. These women were sterilised at 20 and now they are coming up to 45 with no one to look after them in old age. That was the community welfare safety net.”

Brown had been looking for a creative way to get the story out there via social media, but it was not until he and fellow researcher Karen Tucker met with the team behind production company Chaka Studio that the solution became clear. The teams hooked up via Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded React Hub, an organisation set up to bring academics, artists and creative businesses together.

More:
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/11/artistic-campaign-help-300000-peruvian-women-sterilised-against-their-will

[Judi Lynn]

1. USAID Supported Fujimori Sterilization Campaign; Seeks to Cover-Up Involvement

USAID Supported Fujimori Sterilization Campaign; Seeks to Cover-Up Involvement

Steven W. Mosher 2003 Sep 1


The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) joined forces with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to support Peru’s aggressive population control program of the late nineties. Then-President Alberto Fujimori was determined to meet international population targets, particularly among Peru’s large ethnic population, and launched an involuntary sterilization campaign with USAID assistance.

A Peruvian official who later complained about USAID involvement, Peru’s former Minister of Health Fernando Carbone, found himself defamed by the U.S. agency, whose pro-abortion partisans were also upset by his opposition to the abortion-inducing morning-after pill. Carbone’s removal from office followed.

Forced Population Control

Following the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994, Fujimori was determined to achieve by force what his Ministry of Health had failed to achieve through voluntary family planning, namely to lower the Peruvian birthrate. With the support of USAID and UNFPA, he devised a national plan to sterilize large numbers of Peruvian women.1 The plan, called the Emergency and Alternative Plan, called for an all-out mobilization of the country’s medical personnel to carry out tubal ligations. Fujimori’s Emergency and Alternative Plan relied upon "sterilization festivals" to round up and sterilize large numbers of women. This plan had USAID’s blessing and support.

In 1997, with support and cooperation from USAID, Fujimori established the Family Planning Policies Coordination National Commission (COORDIPLAN) to fully implement his Emergency Plan. That year alone, almost ninety thousand women were sterilized. Over 300,000 women would be sterilized in all.2 Ethnic women were routinely called "pigs" or “dogs” in order to intimidate them to undergo sterilization. Bribes, incentives, and threats of withholding basic services were also used. Sometimes women were sterilized by brute force, or without their foreknowledge or consent during delivery. Sterilizations took place in filthy, USAID-funded clinics. Several women, including Alejandra Aguirre Auccapina and Juana Rosa Ochoa Chira, died shortly after involuntary sterilization procedures.3

Sterilization Programs Evidence of USAID’s close collaboration with Fujimori’s sterilization campaign abounds. For example, USAID funded programs to train military doctors to perform sterilizations, this at a time when the military was being drafted to help carry out the Emergency Plan. USAID also provided generous funding, on the order of $40 million, to Peruvian "non-governmental organizations" (NGOs) involved in the Emergency Plan. For instance, $5 million went to REPROSALUD, an NGO which was “formed alter an agreement between the Manuela Ramos Movement, ALTERNATIVA and USAID." The purpose of REPROSALUD was to promote to ethnic minorities only those methods of family planning approved by the government, which at the time meant sterilization. Women were to be discouraged from bearing additional children or refusing sterilization. USAID also provided $17 million to the Peruvian Programs for Reproductive Health and Family Planning (PRISMA), which distributed USAID contraceptives "in areas in which sterilization festivals were held" and which served as a clearinghouse for funding smaller NGOs that performed involuntary sterilization. USAID provided $18 million to CARE for training doctors to perform sterilization and supplying sterilization equipment used in the coercive campaigns.4

More:
http://pop.org/content/usaid-supported-fujimori-sterilization-1658

[MisterP]

2. the fetal-heartbeat PRI?

[Judi Lynn]

3. Not familiar with them. I grabbed this article because I was looking for the information

concerning the sterilization campaign, which I've read about for years. This was the first source I saw in my search, so I used it.

I'm unfamiliar with the "fetal-heartbeat" reference.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Wikipedia reference to Peru's Fujimori's USAID-assisted forced mass sterilization campaign:

~snip~

In Peru, President Alberto Fujimori (in office from 1990–2000) has been accused of genocide and crimes against humanity as a result of a sterilization program put in place by his administration.[29] Peru put in place a program of forced sterilizations against indigenous people (essentially the Quechuas and the Aymaras), in the name of a "public health plan", presented July 28, 1995. The plan was principally financed using funds from USAID (36 million dollars), the Nippon Foundation, and later, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).[30] On September 9, 1995, Fujimori presented a Bill that would revise the "General Law of Population", in order to allow sterilization. Several contraceptive methods were also legalized, all measures that were strongly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the Catholic organization Opus Dei. In February 1996, the World Health Organization (WHO) itself congratulated Fujimori for his plan to control demographic growth.[30]

On February 25, 1998, a representative for USAID testified before the U.S. government's House International Relations Committee, to address controversy surrounding Peru's program. He indicated that the government of Peru was making important changes to the program, in order to:

• Discontinue their campaigns in tubal ligations and vasectomies.
  Make clear to health workers that there are no provider targets for voluntary surgical contraception or any other method of contraception.
  
  
• Implement a comprehensive monitoring program to ensure compliance with family planning norms and informed consent procedures.
  
  
• Welcome Ombudsman Office investigations of complaints received and respond to any additional complaints that are submitted as a result of the public request for any additional concerns.
  
  
• Implement a 72 hour "waiting period" for people who choose tubal ligation or vasectomy. This waiting period will occur between the second counseling session and surgery.
  
  
• Require health facilities to be certified as appropriate for performing surgical contraception as a means to ensure that no operations are done in makeshift or substandard facilities.[31]

In September 2001, Minister of Health Luis Solari launched a special commission into the activities of the Voluntary Surgical Contraception, initiating a Parliamentary commission tasked with inquiring into the "irregularities" of the program, and to put it on an acceptable footing. In July 2002, its Final Report ordered by the Minister of Health revealed that between 1995 and 2000, 331,600 women were sterilized, while 25,590 men submitted to vasectomies.[30] The plan, which had the objective of diminishing the number of births in areas of poverty within Peru, was essentially directed at the indigenous people living in deprived areas (areas often involved in internal conflicts with the Peruvian government, as with the Shining Path guerilla group). Deputy Dora Núñez Dávila made the accusation in September 2003 that 400,000 indigenous people were sterilized during the 1990s. Documents proved that President Fujimori was informed, each month, of the number of sterilizations done, by his former Ministers of Health, Eduardo Yong Motta (1994–96), Marino Costa Bauer (1996–1999) and Alejandro Aguinaga (1999–2000).[30] A study by sociologist Giulia Tamayo, Nada Personal (in English: Nothing Personal), showed that doctors were required to meet quotas. According to Le Monde diplomatique, "tubal ligation festivals" were organized through program publicity campaigns, held in the pueblos jóvenes (in English: shantytowns). In 1996 there were, according to official statistics, 81,762 tubal ligations performed on women, with a peak being reached the following year, with 109,689 ligatures, then only 25,995 in 1998.[29]

On October 21, 2011, Peru’s Attorney General José Bardales decided to reopen an investigation into the cases, which had been halted in 2009 under the statute of limitations, after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled that Peru’s sterilization program involved crimes against humanity, which are not time-limited.[32] It is unclear as to any progress in matter of the execution (debido ejécucion sumária) of the suspect in the course of any proof of their relevant accusations en el foro legal o del pueblo debido en reivindicácion del derecho del pueblo sul-americano (in the legal sphere of the constituted people in vindication of the rights of the people of South America). It may carry a parallel to any suspect cases for international investigation in any other continent, and be in the sphere of Medical Genocide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Peru's sterilisation victims still await compensation and justice

Natalia Sobrevilla Perea

Keiko Fujimori's weak response to her father's awful policy likely lost her the presidency. It's little comfort to the 300,000 women

Friday 17 June 2011 09.18 EDT

~snip~

As far as Keiko Fujimori and her advisers were concerned, the sterilisation campaign was executed with the best intentions at heart, although some regrettable errors were made. Thirty women died, and several others were scarred for life, as some of those sterilised had, in fact, never had children. The sterilisation program came about as a poverty reduction strategy. In the early 90s Peru had, under Fujimori, put in practice one of the most aggressive structural adjustment policies ever implemented. It was so forceful that even the World Bank advised the Peruvian government to slow down. As a result of prolonged economic crisis and neoliberal reform, 50% of Peruvians lived under the poverty line and population control was an ideal to aspire to. The UN population conference in Cairo in 1994 and the women's Beijing conference of 1995 provided Fujimori with inspiration, and his government received funding from USAid to undertake the ambitious project.

The programme was designed using the rhetoric of women's empowerment but – as Adrian Lerner, researcher at Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, has shown – Fujimori did let references to Malthusian economics slip. The Catholic church accused the government of blindly following the programme, under the advice of the IMF. Fujimori retaliated, branding the church an obsolete institution. Accustomed to fighting the church for its opposition to family planning – and believing this was a genuine movement for the empowerment of women – the medical establishment and feminist groups backed the programme. Thus the voices which could have expressed dissent were silent.

After his re-election in 1995, Fujimori had complete control over the state apparatus, making it possible for him to ensure the passing of legislation that would obscure the chain of command and diffuse responsibility over the programme. Its implementation showed the darkest side of neoliberalism, as those working in the health sector saw on one side their labour rights disappear, while on the other hospitals and health centres were given quotas of a number of sterilisations they had to conduct; they were given bonuses if the numbers were achieved and threatened with firing if they were not.

The result was tragic. It was only when the victims organised themselves and took their protests to the press that a real backlash began. The church and the newly created ombudsman's office took the accusations seriously and by 1998 Fujimori realised the policy could not continue. It was not, however, until the end of his regime that real investigations began and the first official reports were issued in 2002. It recommended that the responsible parties be investigated and the victims compensated.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/17/peru-sterilisation-compensation

[Peace Patriot]

5. OMG! Is there no end to the evil perpetrated by the USAID in Latin America?!

This is so horrible in itself but to think that our tax dollars were paying for it! Utterly outrageous!