During the government of Alberto Fujimori, at the same time that the breakdown of democratic institutions was occurring, a series of programs “in favor” of women were developed, such as the creation of the Women’s Ministry, the promotion of quotas for women on the electoral lists for municipal and congressional elections, the development of public school sex education programs, and the establishment of family planning services, including the Voluntary Surgical Contraception Program, known by its Spanish initials AQV. The support of feminism reached an all-time high when Fujimori participated in the Fourth International Women’s Conference in Peking in 1995. Fujimori was the only head of state to participate in the Conference. The Peking Conference was used as an opportunity to promote the AQV program as a public service. Medical professionals saw the program as an advance in women’s health.
Fujimori had assumed that the most efficient family planning method to slow down population growth, in terms of the cost/benefit ratio, would be the tying of women’s tubes. As a result of that assumption, which ran against evidence to the contrary, other family contraceptive methods were pulled from the public services by executive fiat. In effect, the program was politicized because the president assumed that it would be one of his most important strategies in the fight against poverty.
By 1996, various journalistic reports had already detected that a family planning program that prioritized sterilization was under development and that this program would be set up in public establishments in the poorest parts of the country. The reports denounced the fact that women were to be persuaded to have their tubes tied with the offer of free food that had been donated at health centers.
Between 1997 and 1998, it became evident that the government was introducing AQV in several health centers; that health workers, including both doctors and nurses, were being given quotas of people women who were to receive the treatment; that said health workers received benefits if they met their quotas and were punished if they did not; and that in various cities and towns, above all those in the Andes, tube-tying festivals and campaigns were being carried out. Soon testimonies were gathered from women who had either not given their consent to be operated on, who had only been briefly informed of the procedure, or who had received food or other material benefits for being sterilized. In other cases, the operations were carried out under inadequate conditions, which in some cases caused the death of the woman.
The many denunciations published by the International press tallied 250,000 women who had been left sterile, many of them without their consent.
Between 1998 and 2000, the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office received more than one hundred denunciations concerning women who were subjected to sterilization under pressure, threats, and lies. Some of these women even lost their lives.
One of the best-known cases is that of Mamérita Mestanza Chávez, who died in 1998 after undergoing surgical sterilization. In March 2001, the Peruvian government accepted the recommendation of in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to economically indemnify her relatives, to investigate the acts, to punish those responsible, and to take steps to ensure that a similar situation would not occur again. There is currently a commission charged with finding an effective solution to this problem.
Other cases of women affected by the sterilization program promoted by the Fujimori regime are:
Alejandrina Tapia Cruz (35), who on September 22, 1996, underwent surgery at the Cajacay Health Center. She died of peritonitis the next day. She had been convinced to undergo the procedure at a family planning fair held in her community by the Ministry of Health.
Carmen Santa (26) was operated on in the same health center. She was told that her tubes would only be tied, and that they could be untied when she wanted to have another baby. However, they were permanently cut.
Bernardina Alva (26) allowed the operation to be preformed on her because she was offered clothes and food for her children. On December 20, 1996, she was operated on at the Tocache Rural Hospital. As Alva was illiterate, she never knew what the document that she put her fingerprint on said. She believes that it was an authorization.
In November 1997 a nurse from the Mollepata Medical Center visited the house of Norma Velásquez Delgado (19) in order to convince her to undergo sterilization. The young woman did not understand that it required surgery until after it had already been carried out.
Damiana Barrientos was admitted to the Neo-Natal Institute of Lima on March 23, 1999 in order to have a caesarian section. Her child died Turing the procedure, and without telling her anything, the doctors cut her tubes. She was informed three days later. Three months later she presented a formal denunciation before the Public Ministry, which to this day has not responded.
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