CEDAW/C/89/D/170/2021
included in the Registry of Victims of Forced Sterilization and is receiving
psychological support.
Case of Rosa Loarte Sobrado
2.9 During a health campaign in Pichgas, Huánuco, in October 1996, 35-year-old
Rosa Loarte was stopped by medical practitioners who took her, along with a group
of other women, to La Unión medical centre, approximately two hours away from her
village. The practitioners told the women that all of them had to go, without tell ing
them that they would be operated on. Her 8-year-old daughter and her baby waited
outside the centre. She states that she is illiterate and did not sign anything. She was
put to sleep and when she woke up, the nurses told them: “You won’t be having
children now, we’ve cured you”. Upon waking, Rosa felt strong pains in her belly,
but the staff immediately sent her home; she had to walk carrying her baby. She did
not receive post-operative care. A month after the operation, she moved to Lima. She
did not file any form of complaint. When her husband fo und out that she had been
sterilized, he abandoned her. In 2016, some women in her village told her that they
were gathering information in order to file a complaint. She was entered in the
Registry of Victims of Forced Sterilization on 20 December 2016 and her case was
included in investigation No. 14-2016 on 15 November 2018, by Decision No. 127.
Rosa states that she feels intense pain in her torso and pain in her spine, but she has
not received treatment.
Case of Elena Rojas Caballero
2.10 In 1996, 30-year-old Elena Rojas, a resident of the Dos de Mayo district,
Huánuco, was stopped, along with her sister, by some nurses, who asked her if she
received social benefits and ordered her to get into a truck “so that you can have your
tubes tied in La Unión, so that you don’t have more children, don’t have lots of
children. If you don’t have the surgery we won’t give you your benefits under the
‘Vaso de Leche’ (glass of milk) and ‘Juntos’ (together) programmes”. They were
forced into a truck along with other women. At the medical centre in La Unión, Elena
was made to sign a document “for medicines”. Subsequently, she was anaesthetized;
when she awoke, she felt weak and had intense pain in her abdomen. The staff
reiterated that she had been operated on “so that you don’t have more children”, but
failed to inform her that she had been sterilized or that it was permanent. She was
sent home after four hours without medication or instructions. She did not undergo
any post-operative checks. After finding out about the sterilization, her husband
abandoned her, telling her that she had “let herself be operated on”, so she had to go
and work in the jungle. Six months later, Elena began to suffer severe pain and was
diagnosed with uterine cancer, but she could not afford the necessary operation and
was forced to beg in order to pay for it. Eventually, a doctor agreed to operate on her,
but she could not afford post-operative care. Today, she continues to live with severe
pain and in a highly precarious situation, without the knowledge or means to take
legal action. She states that, in Huánuco, she received a document inviting her to
register as a victim, but, after she moved to Lima in 2016, the various prosecutors’
offices she approached there told her that they did not have jurisdiction. On
6 February 2017, she was entered in the Registry of Victims of Forced Sterilization.
Case of Gloria Basilio Huamán
2.11 In 1996, Gloria Basilio Huamán, from Huánuco, reported having been
constantly harassed during health campaigns by nurses who told her that her husband,
being a farmer, would not be able to support their children, and that, “in the
countryside, women breed like rabbits, like guinea pigs, and don’t use contraception”.
Despite her refusal, in July 1996, when she was 25 years old, a couple of nurses picked
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