Fujimori on Trial for 1990s Forced Sterilization Program

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is on trial following 25 years of legal battles with Indigenous women who were forced to undergo government-funded sterilization procedures (Picryl).

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was brought to trial on March 1 due to his involvement in a government-sponsored sterilization program during his presidency. Fujimori will be tried for the death of five women in addition to injuries suffered by 1,301 others, many of whom claim to have been sterilized without their consent. 

Officials who worked under Fujimori during his presidency have also been accused of involvement in the sterilization program. The trial was initially set to take place in January 2021, but it was delayed to ensure that Quechua translators would be present to allow for the participation of indigenous women. The hearings will take place virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to statistics from Peru’s health ministry, the Voluntary Surgical Drive ran from 1996 to 2000 and is estimated to have been involved in the sterilization of more than 270,000 women and 22,000 men. Initially, the program was well-received as a step towards Fujimori’s goal to reduce poverty. However, the program became controversial after women began speaking up about sterilizations taking place without their consent.

According to the Latin American Committee on Human Rights, approximately 10 percent of women may not have given their consent to sterilization. Many of the women who were sterilized were from Indigenous communities, knowing little to no Spanish and therefore unable to understand medical documents they were forced to sign. Pablo Espinoza, a prosecutor in this case, also stated that many sterilization procedures also took place in unhygienic conditions.

Rossina Guerrero, a program director at the Peruvian reproductive rights group Promsex, asserts that “[the women] were seen by the state as women without a choice and say in what happened to them. They were seen as objects and were dehumanized.” Guerrero also claims that “the state policy was based on discrimination and racism.”

Fujimori is currently serving a 25-year sentence but maintains that he should not face trial in this case because it was not cited as a crime that he would be implicated in when he was extradited from Chile in 2007. Fujimori’s lawyers also assert that local medical workers are to blame for injuries and deaths that resulted from the sterilization procedures. 

There have been many previous attempts to bring this Fujimori to trial. In 2001, the family of Mamerita Mestanza, a 33-year-old woman from Cajamarca, received a settlement from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after tubal ligation—a sterilization procedure—resulted in her death. Further investigations began after this settlement but were subsequently shut down due to a lack of evidence. Social rights activists hope that progress continues after the March 1 hearing and that it “will further justice.”