Mistreatment and Coercion: Unethical Sterilization in India

Post Date: Wednesday, August 7, 2019

 

07.08.2019 – In September 2016, the Supreme Court of India directed the Union Government to ensure the discontinuation of ‘sterilization camps’ within the following three years and to induce the state governments to follow suit. It also charged the government to ensure proper monitoring of the programme, investigate sterilization failures, complications or deaths, and increase the compensation amount in these cases. It further ordered the implementation of established legal, medical and technical standards for sterilization. These directives came as a result of a 2012 petition filed by a health activist through the Human Rights Law Network, the case better known as the Devika Biswas vs. Union of India. This was the second public interest litigation filed on the subject of widespread negligence and human rights abuses occurring regularly in sterilization camps across India.

The purpose of this book on sterilizations in India is multi-faceted. It traces the history and evolution of family planning and sterilization initiatives in India and addresses the issues that plague this initiative. It attempts to reflect on the fallacies within India’s focus on sterilization, by delving into the two of the most important public interest litigations in India involving gross violations of human rights. This book sets out a family planning programme which is humane, consensual, and respects and upholds the rights dignity of all people, especially the people upon whom it is implemented.

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