Peruvian state responsible for mother’s death in forced sterilisation, court rules

Landmark ruling in Celia Ramos case finds 310,000 women, most Indigenous, were targeted in brutal 1990s campaign The highest human rights court in Latin America condemned Peru on Thursday over the death of its citizen Celia Ramos, who died at the age of 34 in 1997 after undergoing sterilisation “under coercion”. The landmark ruling by the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR) is the first on Peru’s forced sterilisation programme, which operated between 1996 and 2000 and was directed against poor, rural and Indigenous women. The court held the Peruvian state “internationally responsible” for the violation of Ramos’s right to life, health, personal integrity, family, access to information and equality before the law. The court determined that Ramos “was pressured by health personnel to undergo a tubal ligation” on 3 July 1997, in a makeshift facility that “did not have the necessary equipment or medications for proper risk assessment or to deal with emergencies”. Ramos, a mother of three girls, suffered a “severe allergic reaction” during the operation and died 19 days later. The Peruvian state was found responsible for the “lack of due diligence and

Mar 6, 2026 → Mar 6, 2026