Across Canada and as recently as 2018, Indigenous women report being forcibly or coercively sterilized. Some women were incorrectly told the procedure is reversible. Others were separated from their babies until they consented to a tubal ligation.

Forced and coerced sterilizations of Indigenous women are a result of systemic bias and discrimination against Indigenous peoples in the provision of public services in Canada, a pattern well known and acknowledged by government. They are an assault on the cultural integrity of societies that have already endured grave human rights violations including forced assimilation.

Sterilizing women without their free, full, and informed consent is a form of violence and torture. Measures to prevent births within ethnic or racial groups is explicitly prohibited by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Everyone who can get pregnant has the human right to make decisions around if, when, and how to create a family. Everyone has the right to live free from violence and discrimination. And everyone has a right to health.

The federal government is responsible for taking a leadership and coordination role in investigating this issue, stopping it, and ensuring justice for survivors.

Provinces, territories, and medical colleges also have a role to play given provincial/territorial jurisdiction over healthcare in Canada. Call on the authorities in the province or territory where you live, as well as medical bodies, to end sterilization of Indigenous women without their consent.

WHAT CAN I DO?

Please write to the provincial/territorial government and the medical body where you live.

Start with Dear (add Salutation included in the contact list below, i.e. Dear Minister)
In your first sentence, tell explain who you are, where in Canada you live, and why you are upset that Indigenous women in Canada are being sterilized without their free, full, and informed consent
Note that the central issue is consent. No one should be sterilized without providing their free, full, and informed consent.

Call on them to:

Participate fully in any meetings, hearings, and investigations into this issue launched at the federal level, and/or launch an independent provincial/territorial investigation into sterilization without consent;
Change policies and procedures to ensure no more women are sterilized without their free, full, and informed consent;
Immediately convene a meeting on this issue including provincial or territorial authorities and colleges of physicians and surgeons, nurses, and social workers, Indigenous women’s organizations, and survivors; and
Centre all actions taken on the voices and needs of those who have been sterilized without their consent.