Easy Choice for Women in Presidential Runoff?
By Milagros Salazar
LIMA, May 20, 2011 (IPS) - In other circumstances, many women in Peru would be celebrating the possibility of a female president for the first time in the history of their country, or the alternative: the triumph of a candidate who promises to improve things for the poor. But both candidates taking part in the Jun. 5 runoff draw heavy opposition or awaken serious doubts among women's groups.
The second round of elections, in which Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the former president who launched a campaign of forced sterilisation of thousands of poor women, and Ollanta Humala, a former military officer stigmatised for leading a failed coup in 2000, puts the women's movement in a bind, activists say.
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My Opinion:
Well, just when I thought LiP could stoop no lower. They ran the above article. This story is the most repugnant, unbalanced, misleading, devoid of facts, non-contextualized and completely removed of today’s reality accounting of events in the Fujimori presidency published at LiP to date. Disgustingly shameful.
Not that this story is in anyway connected to Keiko’s campaign, but the truth is quite different. The country of Peru was struggling with hyper-inflation, terrorism and extreme poverty. The situation of the poor was so desperate and infant mortality so high that when Fujimori launched this massive family planning campaign in the mid-nineties it was widely hailed and supported by the United Nations, USAID and international aid agencies alike. This was about protecting children from abusive parents. The same as those women who smoke, drink and take drugs when they are pregnant are considered abusive parents. People who continue to have babies in situations that cannot sustain infant life are equally abusive. This is not abortion (which by the way is considered to be just fine by the same women’s groups complaining about sterilization) this is prevention. In Darfur women with AIDS are raising this same issue today. But whose human rights are being violated? The woman who wants to continue to have babies when she has been diagnosed with AIDS or the rights of children to be born healthy and to responsible parents who can provide for them? It is a complicated issue. There have been no formal charges filed because there is no evidence of “forced” sterilization that can be substantiated. There was however evidence of “coerced” sterilization and an official apology was issued. But all accounts were individually specific testimonials which varied in nature, consistency and methodology.
Now for more context:
Eugenics programs including forced sterilization existed in most Northern European countries, as well as other more or less Protestant countries. Some programs, such as Canada's and Sweden's, lasted well into the 1970s. Other countries that had notably active sterilization programs include Australia, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Switzerland, Iceland, and some countries in Latin America (including Panama). In the United Kingdom, Home Secretary Winston Churchill introduced a bill that included forced sterilization. Writer G. K. Chesterton led a successful effort to defeat that clause of the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. The Roman Catholic Church has been a notable opponent of eugenics and sterilization programs. In Peru, former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) pressured 200,000 indigenous people in rural areas (mainly Quechuas and Aymaras) into being sterilized.
In today’s modern societies we go to extreme and intrusive measures to protect children from the stupidity and brutality of their parents. Excuse me if I don’t see the disparity between pressuring ignorant parents (who cannot properly care for the basic needs of their 10 children) into being sterilized, and tearing whole families apart by jailing the parents and throwing the kids into Foster homes because of the use of drugs or alcohol in the family. Both are parental child abuse and both are wrong. So instead of sterilization maybe the parents should have been thrown in jail. Which by some testimonial accounts was the choice given. “You get sterilized or your husband will go to jail.”
Again, this outdated absurdness has nothing to do with Keiko Fujimori.
Final Analysis:
Women have reproductive rights as long as they can provide and care for the children which they produce. When women require support and assistance from society to provide and care for those children which they produce, then reproductive rights come with responsibilities and obligations to the society that provides that support and assistance. When women abuse those responsibilities and obligations to the benevolent society supporting them, then that society has an obligation and responsibility (to the children of these women and the responsible members of the society), to persuade or demand the curtailment or elimination of child reproductive rights for these abusive women.
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