User:Marinati55/Compulsory sterilization

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Bolivia

Female sterilization as the main contraceptive method was part of the measures taken by the state through social programs for birth and population control, related by many experts in economic development to the increase in global poverty rates, despite multiple complaints about the lack of knowledge about the implications and care that this surgical procedure entails.

In Latin America there are formal charges that have been covered by the public media, such as the case of Peru during the regime of Alberto Fujimori, who forced women from indigenous Peruvian communities to undergo sterilization, during which many not only underwent uninformed operations, but also died from malpractice or infections from the operation. However, there are other cases of forced sterilization of indigenous people that have been little commented on at the international level but are part of the history of Latin American nations.

Reports of sterilizations of Bolivian indigenous women belonging to the Quechua tribe by Peace Corps volunteers during the 1960s. This fact, which for experts on the subject is a clear example of the tensions between the modernizing discourse of foreign forces and the anti-imperialist resistance mediated by the centrality of gender policies, manifested in the interest in the control of the bodies of the indigenous women of this native community. In 1968, filmmaker Jorge Sanjines went to the Quechua community of Kaata to obtain information about this event based on testimonies from the community itself. As a result of this work, in 1969 the documentary Yawar Mallku (Blood of the Condor) was released, which was widely received by the population.

Nigeria

Laws in Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania involve references to medical operations where the intended benefit for the patient is not tied to any legal consequences for medical professionals involved. Specifically, the criminal Code of Nigeria States that: “Performing with good faith and with reasonable care and skill a surgical operation upon any person for his benefit, if the performance of the operation is reasonable, having regard to the patient’s state and to all the circumstances of the case.”

In Nigeria, young girls with intellectual disabilities are susceptible to non consensual sterilization. No current laws explicitly prevent involuntary sterilization. And the laws that currently surround and may apply to the issue are not helpful in preventing it. The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights declared that involuntary sterilization violates the right to “equality and non-discrimination, dignity, liberty and security of the person.”

Involuntary sterilization in Nigeria is more common for girls with intellectual disabilities than for boys with intellectual disabilities and more common for those with intellectual disabilities specifically in comparison to other disabilities. Involuntary sterilization commonly occurs when relatives initiate it. In several studies involving parents of girls with disabilities who had initiated involuntary sterilization, respondents said that the primary reason for sterilization was to prevent pregnancy either for financial reasons or due to risk of offspring with intellectual disabilities. However, similar motivations for sterilization were not common for girls without intellectual disabilities. There is also a gendered element sterilization as the Nigeria law code penalizes emasculation, which makes it so that men cannot reproduce. There is no such penalization for sterilization of women.

South Africa

There have been cases of involuntary sterilization in South Africa in the cases of women with HIV. Even though South African law details that women, only with proper consent, should have access to sterilization mechanisms, there have been instances where women diagnosed with HIV have not fully consented to sterilization. Legal framework to prevent involuntary sterilization has proved ineffective for women with HIV in South Africa. Medical professionals may get around obtaining proper consent in several ways. For example, women with HIV in South Africa have been unknowingly sterilized or have been forced to consent to sterilization to receive food or necessary treatment.

Japan

[...] In March 2019, Japan's legal policy about transgender people was:

In Japan, transgender people who want to legally change their gender must appeal to a family court under the GID Act, which was introduced in 2004. The procedure is discriminatory, requiring applicants to be single and without children under age 20, to undergo a psychiatric evaluation to receive a diagnosis of "gender identity disorder," and to be sterilized. The requirements rest on an outdated and pejorative notion that a transgender identity is a mental health condition, and compel transgender people to undergo lengthy, expensive, invasive, and irreversible medical procedures.

The last stipulation of the GID Act concerning forced sterilization was recently overturned in October 2023 when Japan’s Supreme Court ruled that requiring transgender people to undergo sterilization in order to legally change their gender identity is unconstitutional. The court stated that forcing the sterilization of the plaintiff, a transgender woman, so that she could change her gender on her Japanese family registry certificate demonstrated a restriction on "her freedom not to harm herself against her will." They deemed this requirement of the GID Act unconstitutional. The court did not rule on the separate requirement of the GID Act that transgender people must undergo transition surgery in order to legally register as the gender with which they identify.

Effects on Disabled People

[...] Discussion on the involuntary sterilization of disabled persons is now largely focused on the right of a guardian to request sterilization.

In Europe, disabled women are still being sterilized due to circumstances deemed exceptional to these laws by doctors and parents rather than the individual themselves. "'So many times, you hear it’s in the best interest of the woman,' said Catalina Devandas Aguilar, a former United Nations special rapporteur for disability rights. 'But often, it’s because it’s more convenient for the family or the institution that takes care of them.'"

In March 2023 in Iceland, Hermina Hreidarsdottir authorized a hysterectomy for her severely cognitively impaired 20-year-old daughter because of her abnormal menstrual cycle. Ms. Hreidarsdottir took liberty of this decision for her daughter with the intention that the sterilization procedure would make her daughter feel better. Since 2019, Iceland has banned nonconsensual sterilization except in cases of medical necessity. This law only addresses procedures of tubal ligation and surgical blocking of the fallopian tubes, excluding hysterectomies from the ban. Iceland's laws surrounding legalization of sterilization practices also do not address consent of the seriously disabled individual who is undergoing the procedure.

In India, the Right to Persons with Disabilities Act (RPWD) was introduced in 2016 to legally address the problems faced by the disabled community and ensure equitable access to justice for all members of society:

"While the RPWD Act took a step towards recognizing the issue of forced abortions under Section 92(f)[1] which states that any medical procedure performed on a disabled woman without her express consent that leads to the termination of pregnancy is punishable with an imprisonment term, there is still no specific mention of forced sterilization as a problem."

There is no clause in the RPWD that addresses the notion of "expressed consent." The concept of consent in relation to family planning and sterilization practices has been a point of contention in India's history of reproductive justice of disabled individuals. In the court case Suchita v Chandigarh (2009), a mentally ill orphaned woman expressed clear consent to have a child, but she was opposed by the guardian welfare institution where she was admitted. The Supreme Court emphasized that the requirement for consent cannot be diluted solely by what society deems to be in the woman’s best interests. The case further argued for a limited guardianship approach, whereby the state could not extend its power to the point of breaching a woman’s reproductive autonomy.