Why the reproductive rights of Indigenous women cannot be ignored

In recent weeks, thousands of people have been marching in Peru to protest against the presidential candidacy of Keiko Fujimori. Ms Fujimori is the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori – a man currently imprisoned for human rights abuses and corruption conducted during his presidency from 1990 to 2000. Among the demands from the protesters has been a call for full recognition and reparation for the estimated 300,000 indigenous women forcibly sterilised under the elder Fujimori's regime. This short video tells how many of these impoverished women were forced to consent to the procedure in exchange for food and welfare provisions. The protesters were wearing cut-out uteruses adorned with numbers to highlight the sheer amount of victims awaiting justice.

Why the reproductive rights of Indigenous women cannot be ignored 1460965033758

Why the reproductive rights of Indigenous women cannot be ignored 1460965033758

Unfortunately, this experience of indigenous Peruvian women is not an isolated case. Across the world, many governments have sought to control the fertility of indigenous women via practices which can only be described as genocidal. In addition, where Indigenous women have been able to have children, governments sought to remove these children from their families in order to "assimilate them". In most cases, while some acknowledgements have happened, justice and reparations tend to fall well short of undoing the harm and hurt.

In Canada, for example, coercive and government-sanctioned sterilisation programs operated for several decades. Aboriginal women; along with the disabled and other peoples deemed "unfit" by the authorities; were targeted by such programs. Native sterilisation reached its zenith in the early 1970s where an estimated 25 per cent of those sterilised were aboriginal and Métis people. In Canada, this also ran alongside "residential school" programs where children were forcibly removed from their families and placed in boarding schools in order to assimilate them into mainstream society.

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/why-the-reproductive-rights-of-indigenous-women-cannot-be-ignored-20160417-go8ja9.html

Why the reproductive rights of Indigenous women cannot be ignored

Why the reproductive rights of Indigenous women cannot be ignored

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