CEDAW/C/89/D/170/2021 Facts as submitted by the authors General context 2.1 In 1995, the Act on the national population policy was amended to authorize the use of voluntary surgical contraception, or female and male sterilization procedures. Those procedures were promoted by means of comprehensive campaigns and so-called health festivals, and healthcare personnel were offered incentives to perform those types of interventions. Female sterilization procedures intensified between 1995 and 2000. In 1997 alone, 109,689 tubal ligations were performed. 1 2.2 On 6 February 1996, by Ministerial Decision No. 071-96-SA-DM, the Programme on Reproductive Health and Family Planning (1996–2000) was approved, with the stated aim of improving the reproductive health of men and women at all stages of their lives, through promotion, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of the best possible quality. 2 The programme primarily entailed the use of voluntary surgical contraception, which was allegedly carried out without adequate infrastructure, specialized medical personnel or the proper informed consent of those who underwent procedures. 3 Many women under the age of 25 and women without children were sterilized. More than 300,000 women (93 per cent of the total), mostly Indigenous, were sterilized without their consent, especially in low -income and rural areas of the State party. To a lesser extent, men, mostly Indigenous, were also subjected to vasectomies. 2.3 In 2001, a congressional investigative subcommittee concluded that, between 1993 and 1999, 314,605 women and 24,563 men had been forcibly sterilized, 4 through the establishment of targets, incentives and bonuses and the organization of festivals and campaigns to promote voluntary surgical contraception without informed consent, and using coercion. 5 On 9 August 2002, Congressperson Héctor Chávez Chuchón filed constitutional and criminal complaints against former President Alberto Fujimori before the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor Specializing in Crimes against Human Rights, leading to the opening, on 27 January 2003, of case No. 10-2002, which was closed in 2004 owing to a lack of evidence. The case was reopened in 2005 after the National Human Rights Commission submitted new evidence. In 2009, the case was closed again due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution. In parallel, on 13 August 2003, Senator Dora Núñez Dávila filed another constitutional complaint for crimes against humanity, including torture, serious injury, kidnapping and unlawful association, against the former President and the former health ministers. In July 2006, after the benefit related to antejuicio constitucional (preliminary constitutional proceedings for the filing of criminal charges against senior government officials) had expired, the information gathered during the investigations carried out within the Congress of the Republic was collected as case No. 18-2002. On 18 June 2007, the provincial prosecutor ordered that the investigation be expanded. 2.4 On 10 October 2003, the State party signed a friendly settlement agreement with the relatives of María Mamérita Mestanza Chávez, a victim of forced sterilization who had died a few days after the procedure, before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In the agreement, the State party acknowledged its international responsibility, and undertook to adopt a series of material and moral reparation __________________ 1 2 3 4 5 2/19 Report of the Ministry of Health of Peru, cited in Supreme Court of Chile, case No. 71.850-2021, Decision, Santiago, 24 June 2024, p. 117. Ministry of Health, Programme on Reproductive Health and Family Planning ( 1996–2000), p. 26. Supreme Court of Chile, case No. 71.850-2021, Decision, Santiago, 24 June 2024, p. 106. Official statistics from the Ministry of Health of Peru. Final report of the investigative subcommittee on voluntary surgical contraception, established at the plenary congressional session of 25 October 2001. 24-19966