The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) has ordered Peru to pay reparations to the family of Celia Ramos, a mother of three whose death resulted from a campaign of forced sterilisations during the 1990s.
Thursday’s landmark ruling stated that the 34-year-old Ramos was coerced into sterilisation against her will, causing an allergic reaction that led to her death. The Court ordered Peru to pay her family $340,000 as part of the ruling. The Court noted that the Peruvian government had “failed to fulfill its obligation to initiate and conduct a thorough investigation” into Ramos’s case, heightening the strain on her family.
“Ms Ramos Durand’s family members — especially her three daughters, who were children at the time of the events — suffered profound harm as a consequence of the sterilization and death of Celia Edith Ramos Durand and the impunity surrounding the case,” the IACHR wrote in its decision.
Peru’s campaign of forced sterilisation took place under the late President Alberto Fujimori, whose tenure included widespread human rights abuses that continue to cast a shadow over the country.
This week’s ruling is the first time the human rights court has weighed in on the issue, which has been the subject of years of legal contestation in Peru.
The scheme largely targeted poor and Indigenous women who were often tricked or coerced into sterilisation procedures.
“After almost 30 years of searching for justice, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights recognised the responsibility of the Peruvian state in the forced sterilisation and death of Celia Ramos,” the Peruvian feminist organisation DEMUS said in a social media post, celebrating the ruling. “This ruling marks a fundamental step in reparations for Celia, her family and the thousands of victims of forced sterilizations in Peru.”
SOURCE: AlJazeera, by Brian Osgood and the Associated Press. 6 March 2026.
PHOTO: Demonstrators stage a performance dedicated to the victims of forced sterilisation in Lima, Peru, on 6 March 2026. Martin Mejia/AP Photo.