CEDAW/C/89/D/170/2021 5.4 The authors reiterate that more than 300,000 women, mostly Indigenous women from the altiplano region, were forcibly sterilized between 1996 and 2001 precisely as a result of the Programme on Reproductive Health and Family Planning. The implementation of the Programme enabled State agents to sterilize the authors forcibly as part of a State policy aimed at controlling the birth rate among the Indigenous population, on the assumption that doing so would reduce poverty levels. Even after acknowledging its international responsibility, the State party has yet to take full responsibility for the alleged incidents. 5.5 The authors state that they have proved their status as victims through their testimonies, which are consistent with a pattern of systematic violations by the State party. The authors maintain that, in cases of mass, widespread and systematic violations of human rights, it is incumbent upon the State to demonstrate that the alleged violation did not occur. Since the forced sterilizations were the result of a deliberate policy, it is the State party that must demonstrate that the victims were not sterilized against their will. Furthermore, the authors are included in the Registry of Victims of Forced Sterilization and thus the State party itself has recognized their status as victims. 5.6 The authors claim that the State party did not address their assertion regarding the impossibility of filing civil suits that would allow them to obtain full reparations for the forced sterilization that they had undergone; since the statute of limitation s had already expired when the dictatorship ended and there were no other remedies available, there were no effective legal mechanisms available to the victims to seek redress. They also claim that criminal proceedings offer no guarantee of redress and that they have no recourse to any other legal mechanism that would enable them to receive adequate reparations. 5.7 The authors claim that, on 7 December 2023, the Supreme Court granted the application for amparo filed by the former Minister of Health, Alejandro Aguinaga, thereby nullifying all the proceedings related to the criminal investigations into the forced sterilizations performed between 1996 and 2001, including the order of December 2021 to institute pretrial proceedings against Alberto Fujimori. The Court ruled that all the investigations would be reset to their status in 2018, when the investigation had been formally launched. The authors claim that, on the basis of those court proceedings, it can be concluded that there is no indication in the ongoing criminal proceedings of a willingness to shed light on the events. State party’s additional observations on admissibility and the merits 6.1 In its additional observations of 2 May 2024, the State party reiterates that the domestic remedies have not been exhausted. It adds that, with respect to the amparo proceedings, the Supreme Court nullified the order to institute pretrial proceedings of 11 December 2021 owing to a lack of proper reasoning and that the granting of amparo implies neither a final verdict nor the nullification of the investigations conducted; rather, the aim is to ensure that constitutional guarantees are respected throughout the pretrial investigation stage of the criminal proceedings. 6.2 The State party claims that it can neither recognize that the violations experienced by the authors occurred nor demonstrate that the authors were not sterilized against their will, because the reported incidents are under investigation as part of ongoing criminal proceedings. The fact that the authors are included in the Registry of Victims of Forced Sterilization does not imply acknowledgement of responsibility by the State, because that is a determination that must be made by the courts. 24-19966 11/19