Health

Forced sterilization, the wound that never heals

Madrid/Tokyo/Toronto /Lima, Jan 21 (EFE), (Camera: EFE).- "I still hope my parents regret it," says Cristina, who suffers from Asperger's disorder and was sterilized at the age of 18 to prevent her from having "sick children." Saburo Kita, 76, now demands the part of her life that was taken from her when she was a teenager. María Elena Carvajal, 50, feels "like a woman in her 80s" due to a traumatic tubal ligation that broke her forever.Saburo and María Elena are victims of macabre population control policies in Japan and Peru in the 20th century. Forced sterilization is one of the most widespread human rights violations in the world (at least 38 countries practised it in 2017), despite being described as a war crime and against humanity in 1998 and as a form of specific violence against women and torture by the United Nations in 1995 and 2008. SOUNDBITES OF:-ISABEL HUAMANÍ:"Doctors came to us with lies. One told us that they would do a tubal ligation and that it would last one month, or one or two years…We are illiterate. We could not... What would we ask? Back in those days, I could not speak Spanish correctly. They said ‘This is just a little cut, it will not hurt. You will be fine tomorrow’. I believed in what he said and that afternoon they ‘cut’ me and the following day they sent me home. I went home. My partner, the father of my children, did not know what had happened. He heard rumours and started abusing me, beating me...He was jealous ‘Why did you do that? Do you want to cheat on me with other men?‘, he would say. He started beating me. He used to beat me... and now I am not feeling well. He abandoned me. We got separated. My kids were taken from me. I want justice, we demand justice.""I can’t. I can’t bear all I have been through. I have been through a lot. We demand justice. We demand justice."-MARÍA ELENA CARVAJAL:"I was sterilized at the age of 26. The doctor said that I did not need my husband’s authorization and that I should do it. They insisted a lot and I was dazed. They connected the intravenous tubing and I do not remember exactly how it happened. When I woke up from the anesthesia, I felt dazed again. The father of my children did not want to know anything about kids or me.""Many women have died, many are sick and others are getting worse day after day. We demand what belongs to us.""I try to keep strong, sometimes I can’t find the strength...But I do it for them, my fellow victims. We are thousands still waiting for truth, justice and reparation. I do it for them and for myself, I try to keep myself strong and empowered to keep going and get what belongs to us."WRITTEN WITH THE COLLABORATION OF YOKO KANEKO AND AGUSTÍN DE GRACIA (TOKYO) AND JULIO CÉSAR RIVAS (TORONTO). EDITOR: JAVIER MARÍN.