CEDAW/C/89/D/170/2021 her up along with other women, stating that they were doing so by order of the President and the Ministry of Health, and that the women could not disobey. Frightened, Gloria boarded the trucks with other women and was taken to the medical centre in La Unión. There, she was asked to sign a document in order to receive food for her children. The resources and infrastructure were inadequate, with “medical practitioners sharpening knives and cutting us up like animals, cutting open our bellies and letting the blood spill out, as if we were sheep in a slaughterhouse, onto the floor”. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Gloria was restrained by force and anaesthetized. She did not receive post-operative treatment, stating that she had been left with permanent trauma. Later, she was diagnosed with 20 cm cysts in her ovaries, had to relocate to Lima for treatment and is currently suffering from uterine detachment. The experience affected her self-esteem, as she considers herself to be “a barren woman”, and it also damaged her relationship with her husb and, who does not forgive her for having been sterilized without his consent. Gloria did not take legal action because of her lack of knowledge and financial resources. In 2017, during a trip to Huánuco, other women informed her that she could register in the Registry of Victims of Forced Sterilization, which she subsequently did in Lima. Exhaustion of domestic remedies 2.12 The authors claim that they did not file a complaint before the civil courts to request compensation because they did not know the type of surgical procedure performed or that it was permanent, for fear of reprisals, or because they were unaware of the available resources (some of them being illiterate or Indigenous with little knowledge of Spanish). Furthermore, according to the authors, at the time of the events, the State party was under a dictatorial regime and, after the fall of that regime in 2001, the statute of limitations for bringing civil actions had expired. The events were not initially investigated as crimes against humanity, so the associated crimes under ordinary law were also time-barred. The authors add that, at the time of the events, the available appeals would have been ruled upon by courts that lacked impartiality, since there had been interference with the Constitutional Court in 1997, with the dismissal of three judges by the Congress of the Republic. 10 Despite the fact that the cases of three of the authors were subsequently included in investigation No. 14-2016 into “those who are found responsible for the crime of serious injury in the context of serious human rights violations”, 24 years after the events, there are at least five orders for no further action to be taken, the investigations are still pending, and there is no criminal trial under way against those directly or indirectly responsible for the forced sterilizations suffered by the authors. 11 Similarly, the authors state that they have been included in the Registry of Victims of Forced Sterilization since 2017 but have not received any form of comprehensive reparation to date. Complaint 3.1 The authors allege that the forced sterilization to which they were subjected violated their rights under articles 2, 3, 12, 14 and 24 of the Convention, in the light of the Committee’s general recommendations No. 19 (1992) on violence against women, No. 24 (1999) on women and health, No. 33 (2015) on women’s access to justice, No. 34 (2016) on the rights of rural women and No. 35 (2017) on genderbased violence against women, updating general recommendation No. 19. 3.2 The authors argue that the communication is admissible under article 4 (e) of the Optional Protocol because, although the events occurred prior to the entry into __________________ 10 11 6/19 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 1997 annual report, 17 February 1998, chap. IV, paras. 23 and 24. On 9 August 2024, Act No. 32107, on the application of the statute of limitations to crimes against humanity committed before 1 July 2002, entered into force. 24-19966