tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/forced-sterilisation-3954/articlesForced sterilisation – The Conversation2020-07-14T13:31:38Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1424142020-07-14T13:31:38Z2020-07-14T13:31:38ZLegal expert: forced birth control of Uighur women is genocide – can China be put on trial?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347294/original/file-20200714-30-1ujwk2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=159%2C114%2C4026%2C2548&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Uighurs protest outside the Chinese embassy in London in 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-england-31st-may-2019-uyghur-1412946305">Karl Nesh/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Uighur women in China’s Xinjiang province who have more than the approved number of children are being forcibly sterilised, forced to have abortions or having intra-uterine contraceptive devices (IUDs) inserted without their consent, according to <a href="https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c">reports that have emerged</a> in recent weeks. The birth rate for Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim minority, has decreased significantly, according to <a href="https://jamestown.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Zenz-Internment-Sterilizations-and-IUDs-UPDATED-July-21-Rev2.pdf?x94369">a recent research report</a>.</p>
<p>These alleged practices are egregious violations of the human rights of Uighur women, and in my opinion, constitute genocide of the Uighur people. </p>
<p>Human rights concerns have been raised for the past few years over China’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-50511063">detention of Muslims</a> in reeducation camps in Xinjiang. Now a number of attempts are being made to hold China accountable on the international stage, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/uighur-china-exiles-icc-genocide-crimes-against-humanity-complaint-a9606921.html">including at</a> the International Criminal Court (ICC). </p>
<p>Under China’s one-child policy, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-scrapping-the-one-child-policy-will-do-little-to-change-chinas-population-49982">was relaxed in 2015</a>, the country enacted a highly intrusive campaign of social engineering for decades, in an attempt to keep down the population growth. However, minority groups, including the Uighurs, were often permitted to have more than one child, while Han Chinese – the majority ethnic group in China – were not.</p>
<p>But the policy allegedly now being enforced upon Uighur women reverses this. By reportedly forcing them to have their pregnancies terminated, to be sterilised or fitted with IUDs, China is taking deliberate, active and invasive steps to reduce the number of births to Uighur women.</p>
<p>These policies violate China’s duty not to subject its population to inhuman and degrading treatment. Any medical intervention performed without informed consent is already unlawful, and may even be criminal. </p>
<p>What is reportedly going on in Xinjiang province is extreme, state-sponsored abuse, with permanent consequences for women in many cases. Interventions such as these, with no legitimate medical justification, forced upon these women by the state, are a serious violation of their human rights.</p>
<h2>What constitutes genocide</h2>
<p>Victims of human rights violations in China cannot enforce their rights. The country has no human rights legislation. There is no regional court for aggrieved citizens to turn to. But China’s policies not only violate human rights, they are also arguably a genocidal attack on the Uighur people as a whole.</p>
<p>The 1948 <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CrimeOfGenocide.aspx">Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide</a> was adopted in the aftermath of the second world war. Its Article II sets out which acts, committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, national, ethnical racial or religious groups” constitute genocide. One of them is “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.” This is precisely what is reportedly happening to Uighur women in China. </p>
<p>Article III of the Genocide Convention spreads the responsibility for genocide around. It is not just the person who performs the sterilisation or abortion or inserts the IUD. Also accountable are those who conspire to commit genocide, those who incite it directly and in public, those who attempt to commit it, and those who are complicit in the practice. </p>
<p>In other words, responsibility goes right to the top, and all those who knowingly contributed to the genocide or tolerated it <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/resource-library/documents/rs-eng.pdf">may be criminally responsible</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ominous-metaphors-of-chinas-uighur-concentration-camps-129665">The ominous metaphors of China's Uighur concentration camps</a>
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<h2>Routes to accountability</h2>
<p>There are legal routes, albeit unlikely, for those responsible for China’s policies against the Uighurs to be brought to account. First, if there is sufficient evidence against particular individuals, and they were to travel to other countries, these countries could assume jurisdiction to try them. </p>
<p>France, for example, has created a genocide unit precisely to investigate and prosecute such offences. In May, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-rwanda-kabuga/rwandan-genocide-fugitive-kabuga-due-before-french-court-idUSKBN22V1FY">France arrested</a> Félicien Kabuga, wanted in connection with the genocidal massacres of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.</p>
<p>Another option, which has gained traction in recent weeks, is the idea of bringing a prosecution against certain Chinese officials at the ICC at The Hague. The ICC has jurisdiction to try genocide as well as crimes against humanity – widespread or systematic attacks on a civilian population – and there is little doubt that China should also be in the dock for this.</p>
<p>China does not accept the jurisdiction of the ICC, which means that, ordinarily, the court could not try Chinese citizens. However, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/07/exiled-uighurs-call-on-icc-to-investigate-chinese-genocide-in-xinjiang">lawyers acting</a> on behalf of a group of exiled Uighurs claim some of the victims were kidnapped from Cambodia and Tajikistan, which do recognise the ICC. This would give the ICC jurisdiction. </p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether the court will agree and open an investigation, but it has used the same reasoning to <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/item.aspx?name=pr1403">assume jurisdiction</a> regarding the treatment by Myanmar – which is not an ICC signatory – of Rohingya people who fled to Bangladesh.</p>
<p>The legal arguments are real and they are important. A light should be shone on the criminal acts of the Chinese authorities, but the law is never the whole answer. </p>
<p>Perhaps increasing diplomatic pressure – such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/09/world/asia/trump-china-sanctions-uighurs.html">new sanctions</a> announced in early July on Chinese officials by Washington – and public scrutiny over what’s happening in Xinjiang may in the end have more influence on China. However, China’s recent imposition of <a href="https://theconversation.com/china-is-becoming-increasingly-assertive-security-law-in-hong-kong-is-just-the-latest-example-142313">a new security law</a> in Hong Kong amid international condemnation suggest that it is not too bothered about what the rest of the world thinks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142414/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryszard Piotrowicz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Reports have emerged of Uighur women being forcibly sterilised in China’s Xinjiang province. Why this could be genocide under international law.Ryszard Piotrowicz, Professor of Law, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/923242018-03-22T20:00:09Z2018-03-22T20:00:09ZForced sterilization programs in California once harmed thousands – particularly Latinas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210862/original/file-20180316-104663-1txsaha.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Postcard of the Napa State Hospital in Napa, Calif., circa 1905. Over 1,900 Californians were recommended for sterilization while patients here.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://alexwellerstein.com/collection/">The collection of Alex Wellerstein</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/los-programas-de-esterilizacion-forzada-en-california-perjudicaron-a-miles-especialmente-a-latinas-93768">Leer en español</a>.</em></p>
<p>In 1942, 18-year-old Iris Lopez, a Mexican-American woman, started working at the Calship Yards in Los Angeles. Working on the home front building <a href="https://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/116liberty_victory_ships/116liberty_victory_ships.htm">Victory Ships</a> not only added to the war effort, but allowed Iris to support her family. </p>
<p>Iris’ participation in the World War II effort made her part of a <a href="https://iptv.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/american-shipyards-war-effort-ken-burns-the-war/american-shipyards-war-effort-ken-burns-the-war/">celebrated time</a> in U.S. history, when economic opportunities opened up for <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469622095/from-coveralls-to-zoot-suits/">women and youth of color</a>. </p>
<p>However, before joining the shipyards, Iris was entangled in another lesser-known history. At the age of 16, Iris was committed to a California institution and sterilized. </p>
<p>Iris wasn’t alone. In the first half of the 20th century, <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/%7Elkaelber/eugenics/">approximately 60,000 people were sterilized</a> under U.S. eugenics programs. Eugenic laws in 32 states empowered government officials in public health, social work and state institutions to render people they deemed “unfit” infertile. </p>
<p>California led the nation in this effort at social engineering. Between the early 1920s and the 1950s, Iris and approximately 20,000 other people – one-third of the national total – were sterilized in California state institutions for the mentally ill and disabled. </p>
<p>To better understand the nation’s most aggressive eugenic sterilization program, <a href="https://sites.google.com/umich.edu/ssj-mini-conference">our research team</a> tracked sterilization requests of over 20,000 people. We wanted to know about the role patients’ race played in sterilization decisions. What made young women like Iris a target? How and why was she cast as “unfit”? </p>
<p>Racial biases affected Iris’ life and the lives of thousands of others. Their experiences serve as an important historical backdrop to ongoing issues in the U.S. today.</p>
<h2>‘Race science’ and sterilization</h2>
<p>Eugenics was seen as a “science” in the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eugenics-the-early-days/">early 20th century</a>, and its ideas remained popular <a href="https://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/the-american-eugenics-movement-after-world-war-ii-part-1-of-3/Content?oid=2468789">into the midcentury</a>. Advocating for the “science of better breeding,” eugenicists endorsed sterilizing people considered unfit to reproduce. </p>
<p>Under <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2015/05/06/history_of_sterilization_in_california_pamphlet_from_the_human_betterment.html">California’s eugenic law</a>, first passed in 1909, anyone committed to a state institution could be sterilized. Many of those committed were sent by a court order. Others were committed by family members who wouldn’t or couldn’t care for them. Once a patient was admitted, medical superintendents held the legal power to recommend and authorize the operation.</p>
<p>Eugenics policies were shaped by entrenched hierarchies of race, class, gender and ability. Working-class youth, especially youth of color, were targeted for commitment and sterilization during the peak years. </p>
<p>Eugenic thinking was also used to support racist policies like <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/before-loving/">anti-miscegenation laws</a> and the <a href="https://cla.umn.edu/ihrc/news-events/other/eugenics-race-immigration-restriction">Immigration Act of 1924</a>. Anti-Mexican sentiment in particular was spurred by theories that Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans were at a “<a href="https://archive.org/details/surveysinmentald00caliiala">lower racial level.”</a> Contemporary politicians and state officials often described Mexicans as inherently less intelligent, immoral, “hyperfertile” and criminally inclined. </p>
<p>These stereotypes appeared in reports written by state authorities. Mexicans and their descendants were described as “<a href="https://archive.org/details/surveysinmentald00caliiala">immigrants of an undesirable type</a>.” If their existence in the U.S. was undesirable, then so was their reproduction. </p>
<h2>Targeting Latinos and Latinas</h2>
<p>In a study <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304369">published March 22</a>, we looked at the California program’s disproportionately high impact on the Latino population, primarily women and men from Mexico.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211410/original/file-20180321-165574-3rwgpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211410/original/file-20180321-165574-3rwgpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211410/original/file-20180321-165574-3rwgpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211410/original/file-20180321-165574-3rwgpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211410/original/file-20180321-165574-3rwgpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211410/original/file-20180321-165574-3rwgpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211410/original/file-20180321-165574-3rwgpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211410/original/file-20180321-165574-3rwgpw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sample sterilization form for a 15-year-old woman in California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sterilization and Social Justice Lab, University of Michigan</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://experts.illinois.edu/en/publications/mexican-americans-and-eugenic-sterilization-resisting-reproductiv">Previous</a> <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520271722">research</a> examined racial bias in California’s sterilization program. But the extent of anti-Latino bias hadn’t been formally quantified. Latinas like Iris were certainly targeted for sterilization, but to what extent? </p>
<p>We used sterilization forms found by historian Alexandra Minna Stern to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/01/california-sterilization-records/511718/">build a data set</a> on over 20,000 people recommended for sterilization in California between 1919 and 1953. The racial categories used to classify Californians of Mexican origin were in flux during this time period, so we used Spanish surname criteria as a proxy.
In 1950, 88 percent of Californians with a Spanish surname <a href="https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/41601756v4p3ch07.pdf">were of
Mexican descent</a>. </p>
<p>We compared patients recommended for sterilization to the patient population of each institution, which we reconstructed with data from census forms. We then measured sterilization rates between Latino and non-Latino patients, adjusting for age. (Both Latino patients and people recommended for sterilization tended to be younger.)</p>
<p>Latino men were 23 percent more likely to be sterilized than non-Latino men. The difference was even greater among women, with Latinas sterilized at 59 percent higher rates than non-Latinas. </p>
<p><iframe id="fvDKs" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/fvDKs/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>In their records, doctors repeatedly cast young Latino men as biologically prone to crime, while young Latinas like Iris were described as “sex delinquents.” Their sterilizations were described as necessary to protect the state from increased crime, poverty and racial degeneracy. </p>
<h2>Lasting impact</h2>
<p>The legacy of these infringements on reproductive rights is still visible today. </p>
<p>Recent incidents in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/11/21/tenn-judge-reprimanded-for-offering-reduced-jail-time-in-exchange-for-sterilization/">Tennessee</a>, <a href="http://time.com/2903158/california-to-investigate-illegal-sterilization-of-female-inmates/">California</a> and <a href="http://newsok.com/offender-awaiting-sentencing-in-counterfeit-check-case-gets-operation-making-her-sterile-at-judges-suggestion/article/5582478">Oklahoma</a> echo this past. In each case, people in contact with the criminal justice system – often people of color – were sterilized under coercive pressure from the state. </p>
<p>Contemporary justifications for this practice rely on core tenets of eugenics. Proponents argued that preventing the reproduction of some will help solve larger social issues like poverty. The doctor who sterilized incarcerated women in California without proper consent stated that doing so would save the state money in future welfare costs for <a href="https://www.revealnews.org/article/female-inmates-sterilized-in-california-prisons-without-approval/">“unwanted children.”</a></p>
<p>The eugenics era also echoes in the broader cultural and political landscape of the U.S. today. Latina women’s reproduction is repeatedly portrayed <a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/gutfer">as a threat to the nation</a>. Latina immigrants in particular are seen as hyperfertile. Their children are sometimes derogatorily referred to as “<a href="http://harvardlpr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2.2_9_Huang.pdf">anchor babies</a>” and described as a burden on the nation. </p>
<h2>Reproductive justice</h2>
<p>This history – and other histories of sterilization abuse of <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/seeking-justice/case-docket/relf-v-weinberger">black</a>, <a href="https://rewire.news/article/2018/03/15/ama-legacy-sterilization-indian-country/">Native</a>, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/no-mas-bebes/">Mexican immigrant</a> and <a href="https://www.cwluherstory.org/health/35-of-puerto-rican-women-sterilized?rq=Puerto%20rico">Puerto Rican</a> women – inform the modern <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/why-is-reproductive-justice-vital-in-this-political-moment-a-new-book-breaks-it-down/">reproductive justice</a> movement. </p>
<p>This movement, as defined by the advocacy group <a href="http://sistersong.net/reproductive-justice/">SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective</a> is committed to “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” </p>
<p>As the fight for contemporary reproductive justice continues, it’s important to acknowledge the wrongs of the past. The nonprofit <a href="https://californialatinas.org">California Latinas for Reproductive Justice</a> has co-sponsored
a forthcoming bill that offers financial redress to living survivors of California’s eugenic sterilization program. “As reproductive justice advocates, we recognize the insidious impact state-sponsored policies have on the dignity and rights of poor women of color who are often stripped of their ability to form the families they want,” CLRJ Executive Director Laura Jiménez said in a statement.</p>
<p><a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB1190">This bill</a> was introduced on Feb. 15 by Sen. Nancy Skinner, along with Assemblymember Monique Limón and Sen. Jim Beall.</p>
<p>If this bill passes, California would follow in the footsteps of <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/all/eugenic-sterilization-victims-belated-justice">North Carolina</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/va-general-assembly-agrees-to-compensate-eugenics-victims/2015/02/27/b2b7b0ec-be9e-11e4-bdfa-b8e8f594e6ee_story.html?utm_term=.f6b63e0a1f45">Virginia</a>, which began sterilization redress programs in 2013 and 2015. </p>
<p>In the words of Jimenez, “This bill is a step in the right direction in remedying the violence inflicted on these survivors.” In our view, financial compensation will never make up for the violation of survivors’ fundamental human rights. But it’s an opportunity to <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-eugenics-california-20170122-story.html">reaffirm the dignity and self-determination</a> of all people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92324/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole L. Novak has received funding from the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Lira has previously received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. </span></em></p>About 20,000 Californians were once sterilized under state eugenics laws. New research shows Latinos were disproportionately targeted. Is there any opportunity today to address these wrongs?Nicole L. Novak, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, University of IowaNatalie Lira, Assistant Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/814282017-10-10T16:00:29Z2017-10-10T16:00:29ZThe IQ test wars: why screening for intelligence is still so controversial<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187082/original/file-20170921-21016-ld7zty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For over a century, IQ tests have been used to measure intelligence. But can it really be measured? </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>John, 12-years-old, is three times as old as his brother. <a href="https://www.stanfordbinet.net/stanfordbinettest">How old</a> will John be when he is twice as old as his brother?</p>
<p>Two families go bowling. While they are bowling, they order a pizza for £12, six sodas for £1.25 each, and two large buckets of popcorn for £10.86 [each]. If they are going to split the bill between the families, <a href="http://www.tests.com/practice/WISC-Practice-Test">how much</a> does each family owe?</p>
<p>4, 9, 16, 25, 36, ?, 64. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/mensa-iq-test-questions-2016-2">What number is missing</a> from the sequence?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These are questions from online <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/iq-tests-21382">Intelligence Quotient or IQ tests</a>. Tests that purport to measure your <a href="https://theconversation.com/iq-tests-are-humans-getting-smarter-158837">intelligence</a> can be <a href="http://wechslertest.com/">verbal</a>, meaning written, or <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/tests/iq/culture-fair-iq-test">non-verbal</a>, focusing on abstract reasoning independent of reading and writing skills. First created more than a century ago, the tests are still widely used today <a href="https://theconversation.com/intelligence-inheritance-three-genes-that-add-to-your-iq-score-31397">to measure an individual’s mental agility and ability</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/intelligent.aspx">Education</a> systems use IQ tests to help identify children for special education and gifted education programmes and to offer extra support. Researchers across the social and hard sciences study IQ test results also looking at everything from their relation to <a href="https://theconversation.com/intelligence-inheritance-three-genes-that-add-to-your-iq-score-31397">genetics</a>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J134v08n03_05">socio-economic status</a>, <a href="http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0160289606000171">academic achievement</a>, and <a href="http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/1076-8971.11.2.235">race</a>.</p>
<p>Online IQ “quizzes” <a href="https://geniustests.com/">purport</a> to be able to tell you whether or not “you have what it takes to be a member of the world’s most prestigious high IQ society”.</p>
<p>If you want to boast about your high IQ, you should have been able to work out the answers to the questions. When John is 16 he’ll be twice as old as his brother. The two families who went bowling each owe £20.61. And 49 is the missing number in the sequence. </p>
<p>Despite the hype, the relevance, usefulness, and legitimacy of the IQ test is still <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1466807">hotly debated</a> among educators, social scientists, and hard scientists. To understand why, it’s important to understand the history underpinning the birth, development, and expansion of the IQ test – a <a href="https://theconversation.com/show-us-your-smarts-a-very-brief-history-of-intelligence-testing-45444">history</a> that includes the use of IQ tests to further marginalise ethnic minorities and poor communities. </p>
<h2>Testing times</h2>
<p>In the early 1900s, dozens of intelligence tests were developed in Europe and America claiming to offer unbiased ways to measure a person’s cognitive ability. The <a href="https://www.verywell.com/history-of-intelligence-testing-2795581">first</a> of these tests was developed by French psychologist Alfred Binet, who was commissioned by the French government to identify students who would face the most difficulty in school. The resulting 1905 <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-1904-testing-methods-should-not-be-used-for-todays-students-50508">Binet-Simon Scale</a> became the basis for modern IQ testing. Ironically, Binet actually thought that IQ tests were <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20298432">inadequate measures</a> for intelligence, pointing to the test’s inability to properly measure creativity or emotional intelligence. </p>
<p>At its conception, the IQ test provided a relatively quick and simple way to identify and sort individuals based on intelligence – which was and still is highly valued by society. In the US and elsewhere, institutions <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9450.1989.tb01094.x/full">such as the military</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1963.12.3.691">police</a> used IQ tests to screen potential applicants. They also implemented admission requirements based on the results. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/367145?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">US Army Alpha and Beta Tests</a> screened approximately 1.75m draftees in World War I in an attempt to evaluate the intellectual and emotional temperament of soldiers. Results were used to determine how capable a solider was of serving in the armed forces and identify which job classification or leadership position one was most suitable for. Starting in the early 1900s, the US education system also began using IQ tests to identify “gifted and talented” students, as well as those with special needs who required additional educational interventions and different academic environments. </p>
<p>Ironically, some districts in the US have recently employed a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836">maximum IQ score</a> for admission into the police force. The fear was that those who scored too highly would eventually find the work boring and leave – after significant time and resources had been put towards their training. </p>
<p>Alongside the widespread use of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/iq-tests-21382">IQ tests in the 20th century</a> was the argument that the level of a person’s intelligence was influenced by their biology. Ethnocentrics and eugenicists, who viewed intelligence and other social behaviours as being determined by biology and race, latched onto IQ tests. They held up the apparent gaps these tests illuminated between <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40064476">ethnic minorities and whites</a> or between <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19485565.1954.9987163">low- and high-income groups</a>. </p>
<p>Some maintained that these test results provided further evidence that socioeconomic and racial groups were <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/20373194">genetically different</a> from each other and that systemic inequalities were partly a byproduct of evolutionary processes. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/show-us-your-smarts-a-very-brief-history-of-intelligence-testing-45444">Show us your smarts: a very brief history of intelligence testing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Going to extremes</h2>
<p>The US Army Alpha and Beta test results garnered widespread publicity and were analysed by <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/history.html">Carl Brigham</a>, a Princeton University psychologist and early founder of psychometrics, in a 1922 book <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Study_of_American_Intelligence.html?id=IGxEAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y">A Study of American Intelligence</a>. Brigham applied meticulous statistical analyses to demonstrate that American intelligence was declining, claiming that increased immigration and racial integration were to blame. To address the issue, he called for social policies to restrict immigration and prohibit racial mixing. </p>
<p>A few years before, American psychologist and education researcher <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lewis-Terman">Lewis Terman</a> had <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-of-education-quarterly/article/div-classtitlegateways-to-the-west-part-ii-education-and-the-making-of-race-place-and-culture-in-the-westdiv/8A08635C3AE273CE221B14C201481248">drawn connections</a> between intellectual ability and race. In 1916, he wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>High-grade or border-line deficiency … is very, very common among Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest and also among Negroes. Their dullness seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from which they come … Children of this group should be segregated into separate classes … They cannot master abstractions but they can often be made into efficient workers … from a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of their unusually prolific breeding. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There has been considerable <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0003-066X.60.1.71">work</a> from both hard and social scientists <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-10-23/news/9410230254_1_correlation-black-population-genetic">refuting arguments</a> such as Brigham’s and Terman’s that racial differences in IQ scores are influenced by biology.</p>
<p>Critiques of such “hereditarian” hypotheses – arguments that genetics can powerfully explain human character traits and even human social and political problems – cite a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-014-9428-0">lack of evidence </a> and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1RXSBwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=race+and+iq&ots=GKR-p7pbM4&sig=YEdxkcFzVjZCYQlBcs_qM69XV3U#v=onepage&q=race%20and%20iq&f=false">weak statistical analyses</a>. This critique continues <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/15/15797120/race-black-white-iq-response-critics">today</a>, with many researchers resistant to and alarmed by research that is still being conducted on race and IQ. </p>
<p>But in their <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1pn5jp">darkest moments</a>, IQ tests became a powerful way to exclude and control marginalised communities using empirical and scientific language. Supporters of eugenic ideologies in the 1900s used IQ tests to identify “idiots”, “imbeciles”, and the <a href="http://search.lib.cam.ac.uk/?itemid=%7Ccambrdgedb%7C2174447">“feebleminded”</a>. These were people, eugenicists argued, who threatened to dilute the White Anglo-Saxon genetic stock of America. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187086/original/file-20170921-21005-1qrdj6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187086/original/file-20170921-21005-1qrdj6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187086/original/file-20170921-21005-1qrdj6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187086/original/file-20170921-21005-1qrdj6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187086/original/file-20170921-21005-1qrdj6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187086/original/file-20170921-21005-1qrdj6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187086/original/file-20170921-21005-1qrdj6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A plaque in Virginia in memory to Carrie Buck, the first person to be sterilised under eugenics laws in the state.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/juliarowe/3582737724/sizes/l">Jukie Bot/flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result of such eugenic arguments, many American citizens were later <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3299450">sterilised</a>. In 1927, an infamous ruling by the US Supreme Court legalised forced sterilisation of citizens with developmental disabilities and the “feebleminded,” who were frequently identified by their low IQ scores. The ruling, known as <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/200">Buck v Bell</a>, resulted in <a href="http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/unwanted-sterilization-and-eugenics-programs-in-the-united-states/">over 65,000 coerced sterilisations</a> of individuals thought to have low IQs. Those in the US who were forcibly sterilised in the aftermath of Buck v Bell were disproportionately poor or of colour. </p>
<p>Compulsory sterilisation in the US on the basis of IQ, criminality, or sexual deviance continued formally until the mid 1970s when organisations like the Southern Poverty Law Center began filing <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/seeking-justice/case-docket/relf-v-weinberger">lawsuits</a> on behalf of people who had been sterilised. In 2015, the US Senate voted <a href="http://time.com/4534982/thom-tillis-eugenics/">to compensate</a> living victims of government-sponsored sterilisation programmes.</p>
<h2>IQ tests today</h2>
<p>Debate over what it means to be “intelligent” and whether or not the IQ test is a robust tool of measurement continues to elicit strong and often opposing reactions today. Some researchers say that intelligence is a concept <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/psychology/personality-psychology-and-individual-differences/cambridge-handbook-intelligence?format=PB&isbn=9780521739115">specific to a particular culture</a>. They maintain that it appears differently depending on the context – in the same way that many cultural behaviours would. For example, <a href="http://leader.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2278175">burping</a> may be seen as an indicator of enjoyment of a meal or a sign of praise for the host in some cultures and impolite in others. </p>
<p>What may be considered intelligent in one environment, therefore, might not in others. For example, knowledge about medicinal herbs is seen as <a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/intelligence.aspx">a form of intelligence</a> in certain communities within Africa, but does not correlate with high performance on traditional Western academic intelligence tests. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-video-games-could-be-the-new-iq-tests-87625">Why video games could be the new IQ tests</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>According to some researchers, the “cultural specificity” of intelligence makes IQ tests biased towards the environments in which they were developed – namely white, Western society. This makes them <a href="http://nrcgt.uconn.edu/newsletters/winter052/">potentially problematic</a> in culturally diverse settings. The application of the same test among different communities would fail to recognise the different cultural values that shape what each community values as intelligent behaviour. </p>
<p>Going even further, given the <a href="http://tap.sagepub.com/content/12/3/283">IQ test’s history</a> of being used to further questionable and sometimes racially-motivated beliefs about what different groups of people are capable of, some researchers say such tests cannot objectively and equally measure an individual’s intelligence at all. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ignore-the-iq-test-your-level-of-intelligence-is-not-fixed-for-life-30673">Ignore the IQ test: your level of intelligence is not fixed for life</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Used for good</h2>
<p>At the same time, there are ongoing efforts to demonstrate how the IQ test can be used to help those very communities who have been most harmed by them in the past. In 2002, the execution across the US of criminally convicted individuals with intellectual disabilities, who are often assessed using IQ tests, was ruled <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-8452.ZO.html">unconstitutional</a>. This has meant IQ tests have actually prevented individuals from facing “cruel and unusual punishment” in the US court of law. </p>
<p>In education, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/iq-tests-21382">IQ tests</a> may be a more objective way to identify children who could benefit from special education services. This includes programmes known as <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w21519">“gifted education”</a> for students who have been identified as exceptionally or highly cognitively able. Ethnic minority children and those whose parents have a low income, are <a href="http://gcq.sagepub.com/content/30/2/93">under-represented</a> in gifted education. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187089/original/file-20170921-9750-17ykeck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187089/original/file-20170921-9750-17ykeck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187089/original/file-20170921-9750-17ykeck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187089/original/file-20170921-9750-17ykeck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187089/original/file-20170921-9750-17ykeck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187089/original/file-20170921-9750-17ykeck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187089/original/file-20170921-9750-17ykeck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There is ongoing debate about the use of IQ tests in schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The way children are chosen for these programmes means that Black and Hispanic students are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/upshot/why-talented-black-and-hispanic-students-can-go-undiscovered.html">often overlooked</a>. Some US school districts employ <a href="https://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/gifted-state/2014-2015-state-states-gifted-education">admissions procedures</a> for gifted education programmes that rely on teacher observations and referrals or require a family to sign their child up for an IQ test. But research suggests that teacher perceptions and expectations of a student, which can be preconceived, have an impact upon a child’s <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1966.19.1.115">IQ scores</a>, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/0002831209353594">academic achievement</a>, and <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mkraft/files/blazar_kraft_2016_teacher_and_teaching_effects_on_students_attitudes_and_behaviors_public_wp.pdf">attitudes and behaviour</a>. This means that teacher’s perceptions can also have an impact on the likelihood of a child being referred for <a href="http://rse.sagepub.com/content/26/1/25">gifted</a> or <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013124504264444">special education</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2372732215621310">universal screening</a> of students for gifted education using IQ tests could help to identify children who otherwise would have gone unnoticed by parents and teachers. <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/48/13678.full">Research has found</a> that those school districts which have implemented screening measures for all children using IQ tests have been able to identify more children from historically underrepresented groups to go into gifted education. </p>
<p>IQ tests could also help <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=mF_me7HYyHcC&oi=fnd&pg=PA91&dq=%22achievement+gap+is+large+when+children+enter+kindergarten+and+does+not+appear+to+grow%22+%22Finally,+the+growing+income+achievement+gap+does+not+appear+to+be+a+result+of%22+&ots=wt9a5RH4pe&sig=JPRjS2uLIZAbFLluD6Wx6Av5anU">identify structural inequalities</a> that have affected a child’s development. These could include the impacts of environmental exposure to harmful substances such as <a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.pu.12.050191.000551">lead</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3621177/">arsenic</a> or the effects of <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/450527?journalCode=edcc&">malnutrition</a> on brain health. All these have been shown to have an negative impact on an individual’s mental ability and to disproportionately affect low-income and ethnic minority communities.</p>
<p>Identifying these issues could then <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277953696000287">help</a> those in charge of education and social policy to seek solutions. Specific interventions could be designed to help children who have been affected by these structural inequalities or exposed to harmful substances. In the long run, the effectiveness of these interventions could be monitored by comparing IQ tests administered to the same children before and after an intervention. </p>
<p>Some researchers have tried doing this. One US <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01712768?LI=true">study in 1995 used IQ tests</a> to look at the effectiveness of a particular type of training for managing Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), called neurofeedback training. This is a therapeutic process aimed at trying to help a person to self-regulate their brain function. Most commonly used with those who have some sort of identified brain imbalance, it has also been used to treat <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632231730625X">drug addiction</a>, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925492716300269">depression</a> and <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2014/02/11/peds.2013-2059.full.pdf">ADHD</a>. The researchers used IQ tests to find out whether the training was effective in improving the concentration and executive functioning of children with ADHD – and found that it was. </p>
<p>Since its invention, the IQ test has generated strong arguments <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/iq-tests-21382">in support of and against its use</a>. Both sides are focused on the communities that have been negatively impacted in the past by the use of intelligence tests for eugenic purposes. </p>
<p>The use of IQ tests in a range of settings, and the continued disagreement over their validity and even morality, highlights not only the immense value society places on intelligence – but also our desire to understand and measure it. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iq-tests-are-humans-getting-smarter-158837">IQ tests: are humans getting smarter?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was updated on February 1, 2018 to add the word “each” into the second question at the start of the article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daphne Martschenko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The legitimacy of the IQ test is still hotly debated.Daphne Martschenko, PhD Candidate, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/518452015-12-10T06:10:44Z2015-12-10T06:10:44ZPeru’s untold stories of forced sterilisation are being heard at last<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105102/original/image-20151209-15570-1pzlabx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Speaking out.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Quipu Project</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the 1990s, thousands of Peru’s citzens were <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-peru-women-rights-idUSKBN0OJ2FN20150603">sterilised without their consent</a> as part of a National Population Programme. Brought in by President <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16097439">Alberto Fujimori</a>, this programme was supposed to offer all Peruvians access to a range of contraception options. But it also extended to <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14810&LangID=E">mass forcible sterilisations</a>. At least 17 people subjected to sterilisation <a href="http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2014/01/24/actualidad/1390588949_715046.html">died as a result</a> of botched operations carried out with indifference or without adequate care.</p>
<p>For the last 15 years these abuses have been known only to a small group of people, even as Peru has taken pains to face up to the violence of its recent history.</p>
<p>The Peruvian state spent the 1990s waging a merciless war against guerrilla groups that sought to destroy it – among them the radical Marxist group <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ashaninka-of-peru-rescued-from-shining-path-militants-but-still-at-risk-45410">Shining Path</a> – and hundreds of thousands of civilians were caught in the crossfire or deliberately targeted. </p>
<p>Much like Islamic State today, Shining Path had a penchant for staging attention-seeking massacres and murders to provoke maximum public revulsion. The eventual capture of their leader Abimael Guzmán drew scores of sensational headlines and even a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118926/">film starring Javier Bardem and directed by John Malkovich</a>. </p>
<p>After Fujimori resigned from office in 2000 amid devastating revelations of corruption, abuse of power and disregard for human rights, the state engaged in a dogged attempt to find out the truth about atrocities on all sides, with <a href="http://www.cverdad.org.pe/ingles/ifinal/index.php">a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> reporting in 2003. Alongside the testimonies of murder, torture and rape which filled its pages, the programme of sterilisations did not attract much attention.</p>
<p>But thanks to the tireless work of many women who have come together in support groups across the Peruvian Andes, and historians, sociologists and campaigning lawyers, we now have a better idea of who was affected. </p>
<h2>Turning the tide</h2>
<p>The vast majority were indigenous women, often illiterate in Spanish. They were often poor and living in isolated villages with limited infrastructure and services. The violent conflict of the early 1990s had claimed the lives of many of their loved ones, and had instilled in them a deep fear and ambivalence towards incomers. </p>
<p>And of course, the Anglosphere media is also notorious for only focusing on news coming out of Latin America when it conforms to certain stock tropes – revolution, natural disaster, corruption, exoticism or sport. More disturbingly, however, this history remains only sketchily known in Peru itself. </p>
<p>Indigenous women in isolated communities have long been marginalised by their ethnicity, their gender and their location – and that marginalisation arguably helped facilitate and even legitimise the way they were treated by the sterilisation programme.</p>
<p>For 15 years, the word of the people who were sterilised has been stacked against the word of the people who ordered the sterilisation campaign, and the victims have had to struggle to make their voices heard. But the tide is beginning to turn. </p>
<p>Campaigning NGOs have realised that this is a clear example of the abuse of human rights, although no celebrities have yet spoken out in favour of the women’s persistent campaign for justice over the last decade. Amnesty International’s Peruvian Section has <a href="http://www.amnistia.org.pe/tag/contra-su-voluntad/">recently started to campaign on the issue</a>. As Giulia Tamayo, a Peruvian activist who was one of the first to raise the profile of the sterilisations, wrote: “They didn’t expect illiterate, indigenous women would speak up. They were wrong.”</p>
<p>This is a story that can have a happy ending – or at least a resolution of some sort. </p>
<h2>Listen up</h2>
<p>Thanks to the hard work of creative technologists at Chaka Studio, and a long-standing collaboration with Peru’s underfunded activist groups, you can listen to the testimonies today. They have designed a way for people in isolated communities in the Andes, who cannot access the internet, to phone their stories in through a free telephone number. They are then made available to listen to online. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105099/original/image-20151209-15588-b8t7yg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105099/original/image-20151209-15588-b8t7yg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105099/original/image-20151209-15588-b8t7yg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105099/original/image-20151209-15588-b8t7yg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105099/original/image-20151209-15588-b8t7yg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105099/original/image-20151209-15588-b8t7yg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105099/original/image-20151209-15588-b8t7yg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Quipu Project is a new way to make women’s voices heard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Quipu Project</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.quipu-project.com">The Quipu Project is now live</a>, meaning that you can now listen directly to the voices of the people who were affected by the sterilisation programme, and whose stories have been ignored until now. After spending ten minutes or so listening to the voices of the people who were affected by the sterilisation programme, you can then send a message back to them, to be played back on the same phone line. </p>
<p>The more people listen to the testimonies, the more the candidates in Peru’s 2016 presidential election will have to take their demands for justice and reparation seriously. </p>
<p>One of the candidates is <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-peru-election-poll-idUSKBN0NA13F20150419">Keiko Fujimori</a>, the daughter of still-imprisoned ex-president Alberto Fujimori. Like outgoing President Ollanta Humala, who recently signed a presidential decree ordering the creation of a national <a href="http://www.perusupportgroup.org.uk/article-973.html">Register of Victims</a>, which would finally establish how many people were abused by the state,
she has <a href="http://elcomercio.pe/politica/elecciones/keiko-critica-interes-gobierno-esterilizaciones-forzadas-noticia-1861790?ref=flujo_tags_280782&ft=nota_2&e=titulo">expressed her desire</a> to know the truth about what happened. </p>
<p>Until now, efforts to achieve justice and reparations have foundered against public indifference, in Peru and worldwide. But now, thanks to the <a href="http://www.quipu-project.com">Quipu Project</a>, you can not just find out what happened – you can hear it from those involved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51845/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Brown and Karen have worked with Chaka Studio in the development of the Quipu Project.
They have received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council..</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Tucker and Matthew Brown have worked with Chaka Studio in the development of the Quipu Project. They have received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>In the 1990s, thousands of people in Peru were sterilised without their consent – but finally they now have a way to tell the world.Matthew Brown, Reader in Latin American Studies, University of BristolKaren Tucker, Lecturer in Politics, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/342012014-11-19T03:22:10Z2014-11-19T03:22:10ZSterilisation deaths: family planning isn’t just economics<p>Public outcry, demonstrations and riots have followed the death of 13 women at a government female sterilisation camp in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Investigators have blamed <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/13/sterilisation-camp-deaths-drugs-to-blame">tainted medicines and expect the death toll to rise</a> as 20 women remain in hospital in the state capital, Raipur.</p>
<p>Many people may find the whole idea of sterilisation programs abhorrent given contemporary birth control methods are better than any time in history. But the controversy here is not about the utility of birth control and family planning. </p>
<p>There is, in fact, wide agreement among feminists, development practitioners, health authorities and even in most Indian families that limiting the number of children is desirable. The campaigns in India have been successful in raising awareness of the health benefits of family planning. </p>
<p>The main reason the Indian government is so pro-active about population control is economic; it’s about poverty reduction and economic growth rather than the happiness and health of families. And the lesson from this terrible episode is that it must not focus on just the economic benefits of sterilisation programs. </p>
<h2>Sterilisation programs</h2>
<p>At its best, sterilisation happens when a woman, after talking with her husband, decides two or three children are enough and receives a safe and free tubal ligation that she could not otherwise afford. But it’s not always that way.</p>
<p>The Indian government’s promotion of sterilisation has a long and chequered history. It became highly controversial when, under the [state of emergency](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_(India) declared by Indira Gandhi’s government in 1975-1977, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_(India)#Family_planning">sterilisation programs</a> were aggressively, and sometimes coercively, implemented.</p>
<p>Clearly, some problems remain. </p>
<p>The first issue is the focus on female fertility. Programs focus on women, by tying their fallopian tubes (tubal ligation) through keyhole surgery. Male sterilisation is far easier but only <a href="http://mohfw.nic.in/WriteReadData/l892s/Chapter915.pdf">2.5% of sterilisations</a> in India are vasectomies, which seems neither efficient nor fair.</p>
<p>Tubal ligation is simple and has very low rates of serious complication, but the absolute number of complications will be high when so many operations are done (<a href="http://mohfw.nic.in/WriteReadData/l892s/Chapter915.pdf">around four million a year</a>).</p>
<p>The greater problem is the difficulty in guaranteeing quality of care, whether it be the skill of the surgeon, the hygiene of the clinic or the quality and safety of medicines, which <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/13/sterilisation-camp-deaths-drugs-to-blame">seems to have been at fault </a> in this tragedy.</p>
<p>Another problem is that sterilisations are provider-driven and there is typically no cap on the number of operations the government will subsidise. In a culture where the doctor’s advice is not questioned, and particularly not by poor and uneducated women, there’s a strong risk women might be pressured into the operation by surgeons, private clinics and drug companies who all stand to financially benefit. </p>
<p>Although sterilisation is supposed to be voluntary, under financial or political pressure to meet targets, undue force has been <a href="http://www.anthempress.com/an-introduction-to-changing-india">widely documented over the past 40 years</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, giving women a financial incentive for sterilisation is problematic as it can be a form of force. The women sterilised in the Chhattisgarh program received 1400 rupees, or A$23, which is the equivalent of a monthly wage for many poor villagers. </p>
<p>Land, fertiliser and household goods have also been given out to achieve target rates. These incentives can result in women being pressured by their families or by their extreme poverty into having tubal ligations and hysterectomies, often at a young age and against their wishes.</p>
<h2>A measured response</h2>
<p>As India transitions to a middle-income country, and as child mortality and death rates drop, large families are generally no longer as desirable as they once were. And given the scale of the sterilisation program, adverse events will happen. But when they result from a government-sanctioned and non-essential surgery there is rightly an outcry.</p>
<p>Still, it’s important to remember that deaths resulting from sterilisation camps are rare events for what is a very common and usually safely performed procedure. So suspending the country’s sterilisation program on the basis of 13 deaths might be an overreaction. </p>
<p>But this tragic event does provide a healthy space for reviewing the inherent problems in such schemes so women are better protected from coercion and to ensure that family planning is safe and minimally invasive. While economically important, the policy and program cannot and should not be measured solely by its economic impact.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Grills does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Public outcry, demonstrations and riots have followed the death of 13 women at a government female sterilisation camp in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Investigators have blamed tainted medicines and…Nathan Grills, Public health physician and post-doctoral researcher, Nossal Institute of Global Health , The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/342082014-11-14T14:35:19Z2014-11-14T14:35:19ZInside India’s sterilisation camps<p>A sterilisation camp held in Chhattisgarh, an impoverished state in central India, has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/13/sterilisation-camp-deaths-drugs-to-blame">claimed the lives of 13 women</a>, most of whom were young and marginalised. The women, who died within hours of the procedure, were among a group of 83 patients sterilised over the course of just five hours at the mobile clinic. It now appears they died as a result of contaminated medicines. The incident raises critical questions about surgical standards, infection control protocols and post-operative care in India’s reproductive health and family-planning programme. </p>
<p>The tragedy that unfolded at this clinic shows how urgently the approach taken to sterilisation in India needs to be changed. Warnings have been made before about conditions in these camps. <a href="http://bit.ly/1vby65L">In 1994</a>, as part of a team of researchers, I observed 48 procedures carried out in just over two hours at a camp in Kerala, a state in southern region which ranks the highest among Indian states in terms of human capital, social and health development.</p>
<p>Yet, surprisingly, regulations were being violated at the campsite and poor hygiene standards and a lack of decent infrastructure were clear. There was inadequate counselling for the patients undergoing sterilisation and they were not getting follow-up attention.</p>
<h2>The history of sterilisation</h2>
<p>The debate on the quality of care in Indian family planning programmes dates back even before this time though. The government first introduced mass sterilisation camps in the 1970s. At that time, India and China had similar fertility rates of six children per woman. The two countries took different routes in response to the problem but both were seeking long-term solutions to controlling their rapid population growth. </p>
<p>Female sterilisation continues to be the most popular and dominant method of contraception in India. This is especially the case in southern states, which managed to achieve a fertility below replacement level way back in the late 1980s and 1990s – so each couple had just enough children to replace them.</p>
<p>The programme initially promoted vasectomies and targeted couples with two or more children. The government set targets and health providers were offered cash incentives to recruit eligible couples for sterilisation. Many men, including those who were unmarried and illiterate – or were political opponents of the government – were coerced into accepting sterilisation without consent. </p>
<p>The vasectomy programme was deemed a major failure. There was serious a public backlash, blaming the government for forcing sterilisation on poor people. Evaluations of the programme identified weaknesses including method failure, side effects and sub-standard quality of care during and after the procedure. The ruling Congress government even had to step down during an emergency period in 1975-77, following allegations made about the coercive family planning programme. </p>
<p>Since the 1980s, sterilisation programmes have focused solely on women. Now, more than two-thirds of contraceptive use in India is female sterilisation. In some southern and western states, as many as 50% of women have been sterilised. The method has been widely used, mostly by young women, across India for more than three generations. In most cases, women have few options and rely directly on sterilisation as the <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2602900.html">first method</a> of contraception they ever use. Although the government removed family planning targets in 1998, there is still evidence of coercion in sterilisation camps in many parts of India.</p>
<h2>Following the rules?</h2>
<p>There are national guidelines about how sterilisation camps should be organised, the clinical training that staff need to receive and the essential medical supplies that should be on hand – including antiseptic solutions and drugs. Sterilisation camps, in mobile or institutional settings, mostly operate at the district or sub-district level and are co-ordinated by the district health administrators. For both clients and providers, the camps are convenient, easy to access and cost-effective. Only qualified and trained medical professionals are allowed to conduct sterilisations. </p>
<p>Local health workers recruit women or their husbands and usually arrange transport facilities to the camps. They have to provide adequate information about the procedure to clients including potential side effects, indications and contra-indications associated with the method. </p>
<p>The clients are expected to declare their age, family information, medical history and physical and mental health status before the procedure. They should undergo physical and laboratory examinations prior to the surgery. The protocols require clients to make an informed, voluntary decision to be sterilised and counselling services are offered to help them make that choice. </p>
<p>There is, however, evidence to suggest that in most camp settings, these protocols are overlooked or violated for the sake of convenience or due to high case loads. Botched sterilisation surgeries have been reported on a number of occasions in India, especially in remote and deprived areas. Level of care and negligence has remained a major concern more generally in the delivery of family planning services and particularly those requiring clinical assistance. </p>
<h2>Challenges ahead</h2>
<p>The Indian population is still growing at an annual rate of 1.2%. Larger states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan are predicted to almost double in size over the next 30 years. On the other hand, young couples in India increasingly want small families. And given persistently high rates of early marriages and long exposure in the reproductive life, sterilisation is a highly effective method that limits the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions. In fact, there is a high use of sterilisation among women who have just given a birth and those who have had an abortion. </p>
<p>Undoubtedly, a long-term solution is educating and empowering women to make informed choices. There is a dire need for considering innovative strategies to promoting family planning information, education and counselling services – especially in rural areas where women are often forced to surrender to the state-sponsored and incentive-based family planning programmes. </p>
<p>Programme managers need to ensure gender balance in the promotion of contraceptive methods. That could mean revisiting vasectomy as the preferred option, since it is relatively less risky than tubectomy or laproscopy.</p>
<p>With such a high demand for reproductive care, it is essential that health systems offering family-planning services at various levels are systematically monitored and evaluated to ensure that quality of care standards are met. Even though these camps might be coercing some into sterilisation, there is evidently high demand for the procedure. So the standard of care on offer must be guaranteed or more women will be risking their lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sabu S Padmadas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A sterilisation camp held in Chhattisgarh, an impoverished state in central India, has claimed the lives of 13 women, most of whom were young and marginalised. The women, who died within hours of the procedure…Sabu S Padmadas, Professor of Demography and Global Health, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/98122012-10-02T20:51:48Z2012-10-02T20:51:48ZTime to stop the forced sterilisation of girls and women with disability<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16011/original/c8rfjk95-1349054444.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We have surprisingly little information about the extent of forced sterilisation in Australia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Porsche Brosseau</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Senate Community Affairs Committee has announced its intention to consider the involuntary or coerced sterilisation of people with disabilities in Australia. Unless it focuses on the right of people with disability to live free from discrimination, the history of inaction on the issue is bound to continue.</p>
<p>Even though the issue of forced sterilisation has received policy attention since the late 1980s, we have surprisingly little information about the extent of the practice. <a href="http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/hr_disab/sterilization/sterilization.html">A 1997 report</a> showed permission was given by the Family Court and other state-based guardianship tribunals for 17 procedures to be carried in the period from 1992 to 1997, but <a href="http://www.eoas.info/biogs/A002049b.htm">Health Insurance Commission</a> statistics showed that 1045 sterilisations were carried out in that period. </p>
<p>A report tabled in the Senate in 2000 disputed these figures and a 2001 report from the <a href="http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/sterilisation/sterilisation_report.pdf">Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission</a> demonstrated the unreliability of data in this field while lamenting that the debate was reduced to numbers and not concern about girls and young women with intellectual disability.</p>
<p>What we <em>can</em> be confident about is this – forced sterilisation is exclusively directed at girls and women; boys and young men do not figure in the discussion. And there are no recorded instances of the procedure being sought for non-therapeutic reasons for girls or young women who are not disabled.</p>
<h2>A turbulent history</h2>
<p>Non-voluntary hysterectomy was widespread in Australian disability services until the 1980s. Generally, parents, doctors and service providers arranged the procedure for prepubescent girls about to enter group home accommodation. In fact, girls and women had to be shown to have been sterilised before they could enter such accommodation. Whether those who remained at home were also forcibly sterilised is not known. </p>
<p>In the United States, forced sterilisation was compulsory for disabled girls even when they were living in their home community, although blanket sterilisation has been challenged there since the 1980s. Stephen Jay Gould’s 1985 essay “<a href="http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_eugenics.html">Carrie Buck’s Daughter</a>” explored this practice as a type of eugenics policy. Opponents of the practice in Australia also identify the assumptions behind forced sterilisation of disabled girls as being based on eugenics.</p>
<p>Australia’s approach of forcibly sterilising most intellectually disabled girls was challenged in the Family Court in the 1990s. A <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/HCA/1992/15.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=Re%20Marion%20High%20Court%201992">1992 appeal to the High Court</a> clarified the question of who should decide whether a disabled girl should be sterilised. All decisions from that time must be made in the Family Court or an acceptable state-based tribunal and then only if there’s compelling evidence that it’s in the girl’s best interest. </p>
<p>During the first part of 2000s (based on evidence of “irregular” procedures), the Australian Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG) Working Group sought agreement from all state governments to a Sterilisation Model Bill. The aim of the Bill was to provide a nationally consistent approach to this issue, but it was withdrawn in 2007 due to lack of agreement from the states. </p>
<p>In 2010, the federal attorney general <a href="http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/our-responsibilities/women/publications-articles/government-international/united-nations-fourth-world-conference-on-women-beijing-1995/unescap-questionnaire-on-the-beijing-declaration-and-platform-for-action-australian-government-response-april-2009?HTML">told the United Nations</a> that very few such procedures were being carried out. No data was offered to support this conclusion. </p>
<p>Disability advocates suspect that girls are now taken overseas or that euphemisms, such as menstrual regulation, are used to refer to forced sterilisation and that it is still performed on disabled girls in Australia.</p>
<h2>Dubious justifications</h2>
<p>Proponents of forcible sterilisation fear disabled girls’ reaction to menstrual blood, be it disgust or fascination – and that their personal hygiene will suffer. </p>
<p>And as they grow older, girls face a different rationale. At this point, the focus swings to sexual activity or abuse, and contraception. Australian women with disability are at <a href="http://www.aifs.gov.au/acssa/pubs/issue/i9.html#response">higher risk of sexual exploitation</a> and abuse than the wider female population. And proponents argue sterilisation is necessary to ensure disabled women don’t conceive as a result of sexual assault. </p>
<p>Apart from the clearly heartless justification of this position – we can’t keep you safe, so we will stop you from becoming pregnant – opponents see this as exposing disabled women to further risk by effectively offering protection to perpetrators of sexual assault. </p>
<p>Anecdotal evidence from workers in the child protection field suggests that women with intellectual or psycho-social disabilities also face strong pressure to be sterilised if they have children in child protection. The threat of coercion for these women is obvious - they fear that they won’t be allowed see their children unless they acquiesce. </p>
<h2>Doing the right thing</h2>
<p>Over the past 20 years, various bodies have sought clarity about who should decide whether a disabled woman is sterilised with many, including <a href="http://www.wwda.org.au/">Women with Disabilities Australia</a> (WWDA), advocating a complete ban on sterilising girls without medical necessity. </p>
<p>South Australia and New South Wales have clarified guardianship laws for adults and the Family Law Council has <a href="http://www.ag.gov.au/Documents/sterilisation-and-other-medical-procedures.htm">detailed guidelines for decision-making</a> in the Family Court following the 1992 High Court case mentioned above.</p>
<p>With this recent history, it’s tempting to conclude that the inquiry could make little difference. But ratification of the <a href="http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=150">United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability</a> is driving significant policy changes as all Australian governments to come to grips with what it means to pursue a comprehensive rights framework. </p>
<p>Academics and advocates are calling for a national adult protection framework to address this issue along with other rights abuses reported in services. A commitment to such a rights framework will assist the inquiry heed the voices of women who will be affected by a national policy in this area. </p>
<p>Sterilisation for non-therapeutic purposes should never substitute for proper support with menstruation, sexual safety and support when disabled women become mothers. Without the dedicated pursuit of their right to bodily integrity, competing interests will have their sway and disabled girls and women will continue to face forced sterilisation. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9812/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorna Hallahan is Deputy Chair of the National People with Disability and Carers Council.</span></em></p>The Senate Community Affairs Committee has announced its intention to consider the involuntary or coerced sterilisation of people with disabilities in Australia. Unless it focuses on the right of people…Lorna Hallahan, Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Social Planning, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.