U.S. Involvement in the Peruvian Population Control Program of 1996-2001

In this paper, I analyze the United States' involvement in the Peruvian family planning program, Programa Nacional de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar, which was responsible for the forced sterilizations of 272,028 women and 22,004 men, the majority of which were members of Indigenous communities. Throughout the paper, I argue that the United States had a direct impact on the forced sterilizations that occurred from 1996-2001 in Peru through monetary assistance, negligence, and silence. The sources used in my research include an independent project, Quipu, which has the aim of telling these forgotten victims’ stories, scholarly work, governmental transcripts from a U.S. Congress committee meeting, and a translated version of the final report that Peruvian Congressman Dr. Hector Chavez Chuchon created a subcommittee to compile due to the lack of accountability taken by the United States.