The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has found Peru internationally responsible for multiple human rights violations arising from the death of Celia Ramos, who died in 1997 after undergoing sterilisation under coercive circumstances.
The judgment marks the court’s first ruling concerning Peru’s forced sterilisation programme, which operated between 1996 and 2000 and disproportionately targeted poor, rural and indigenous women.
The court held that the Peruvian state was responsible for violating Ramos’ rights to life, health, personal integrity, family life, access to information and equality before the law. It found that health personnel had pressured Ramos, a 34-year-old mother of three, to undergo a tubal ligation on 3 July 1997 in a makeshift medical facility that lacked the equipment and medication necessary for proper risk assessment or emergency care. During the procedure, Ramos suffered a severe allergic reaction and died 19 days later.
The court further determined that the state had failed to act with due diligence in investigating the circumstances of her death and had unjustifiably delayed accountability. It also found that the authorities had violated the rights of her family members, including her daughters, husband and mother, due to the impact of the events on their personal integrity and family life.
The ruling situates Ramos’s case within the wider context of the mass sterilisation campaign implemented during the presidency of Alberto Fujimori. According to the court, the programme resulted in more than 314,000 sterilisations of women and approximately 24,000 of men, many carried out under coercion and without valid consent, primarily affecting Indigenous women and those living in poverty or extreme poverty. The programme also set numerical sterilisation targets for women of child-bearing age.
The case was initially brought before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2010. In 2021, the commission concluded that the Peruvian state had violated Ramos’ rights and recommended reparations as well as measures to prevent similar abuses.
Human rights advocates welcomed the ruling. Catalina Martínez Coral of the Center for Reproductive Rights described the judgment as a historic step for human rights, stating that it reinforced the principle that sexual and reproductive rights are human rights.
Ramos’ eldest daughter, Marisela Monzón Ramos, said the decision represented recognition not only for her family but also for the thousands of women who suffered under the programme.
Lawyer María Ysabel Cedano of the women’s rights organisation Demus, which supported the case, said the circumstances surrounding Ramos’s death reflected the experience of thousands of victims of the sterilisation campaign.