MASSIVE COERCIVE STERILIZATION IN PERU DONE UNDER UNITED NATIONS SUPERVISION

CUSCO, Peru, July 24, 2002 (LSN.ca) – The BBC and UPI (United Press International) report today on a Peruvian Congressional commission report which has found evidence that perhaps as many as 200,000 women were forcibly sterilized in the 1990s under former dictator Alberto Fujimori.  However, the media coverage fails to mention that the commission’s report indicates that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) was established as the “Technical Secretary” of the forced sterilization campaigns.  A detailed report on the commission’s findings by the Population Research Institute (PRI) quotes the report as it says Fujimori’s coercive population control campaigns “presupposed an inverse relationship between population growth and economic growth. Based on this mistaken presupposition, [Fujimori’s] National Population Program established demographic strategies and methods explicitly restrictive and controlling; in this line, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), known for its support of population control in developing countries, took charge. For that end, the United Nations Population Fund act[ed] as Technical Secretary, working in coordination with the National Population Council.”  The coercive sterilization campaigns “executed by the Peruvian government [under Fujimori] were induced and financed by international organizations, especially. the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA),” states the report. The UNFPA, along with other international groups, “brought not only special financing but also demographic goals, for the focalized reduction of the Peruvian population and the fecundity of Peruvian women, especially the women of rural areas.”  PRI’s own investigations into UNFPA-supported forced sterilization campaigns in Peru in 1998, then again in 1999 had victims of forced sterilization testify that women in Peru were routinely treated like animals by family planning cadres, called “beasts” and “dogs” and forcibly sterilized.  PRI contends that the Peruvian report confirms the U.S. made the right decision in defunding the UNFPA since the U.S. is forbidden by law from supporting organizations which support coercive abortion and/or sterilization.  See the full PRI report at:  https://www.pop.org/briefings/wb072202.htm   See the BBC and UPI reports:  https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2148793.stm https://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020724-121010-8030r