Peruvian women haunted by forced sterilisation seek state apology
Peruvian women haunted by forced sterilisation seek state apology
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Thu, 4 Jun 2015 17:00 GMT
Author: Anastasia Moloney
BOGOTA, June 3 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Government health workers spent hours going from door to door to coax, cajole and bully women in a farming community in Peru's highlands to come with them for free medical treatment.
Esperanza Huayama, then three months pregnant, was one of scores of women who clambered onto buses that morning 20 years ago for the three-hour ride to a clinic. Lying in a hospital bed, Huayama soon realised something was wrong - but it was too late.
Moments later doctors administered anaesthetic and when she woke up, Huayama had been sterilised - victim of a birth control campaign targeting mostly indigenous women in the South American country's poor, rural areas.
"I didn't sign anything. They tricked us. Nurses told us we had to go to the clinic where we would be given a free health check-up, medicine and food. They said it was for our own good and well-being," Huayama, now 59, recalled. "They threatened us and said those who refuse to go wouldn't get medical care in the future," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview from Peru's northern Huancabamba province.
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