Forced sterilizations

Between 1996 and 1998 the government of Alberto Fujimori set out a family planning programme that included sterilization. Although in theory all of these should have been voluntary with those undergoing them giving their full consent, many of the approximately 300,000 tubal ligation procedures and 30,000 vasectomies were forced. The exact numbers remain a matter of dispute and the search for justice and accountability continues.
In 2004 the Peruvian Government acknowledged its reponsibility in the death of María Mámerita Mestanza in a blotched procedure and agreed to providing reparations for the victims.
The process of achieving justice and reparation has proven to be long and complex, with the judicial process still ongoing and the establishment of a National Register of Victims in 2015.
The case was especially important in the presidential elections of 2011 and 2016, both ocassions when Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Alberto who was the first lady in the 1990s, narrowly lost.

I have been involved in supporting the campaign for justice since 2011 by publishing in the press, supporting a PhD student on this topic and organizing the visit in 2017 to Britain of Esperanza Huayama the then vice-president of the Victims Association.