Forced Sterilization and Coerced Contraception: Towards a Multi-National Agenda

Current Projects

Team:

Principal Investigator: Dr. Denise L. Spitzer (University of Alberta)

Research Coordinator: Marieliv Flores Villalobos

Co-Investigators: Yuni Asriyanti, Rey Asis, Josie C. Auger, Alejandra Ballón, Kristin Black, Vera Caine, Siobhan Dreelan, Jana Grekul, Paulina Johnson, Karsiwen, Jill Konkin, Susanne Luhmann, Tania Pariona Tarqui, Budi Wahyuni

Research Assistant: Trishtina Godoy-Contois

Project Coordinator: Andrea Burkhar

Summary of Project:

Forced Sterilization and Coerced Contraception (FSCC): Towards a Multinational Agenda is a research collaboration whose goal was to generate a research agenda grounded in the experiences and desires of Indigenous women from Canada and Peru and former migrant workers from Indonesia who have lived experience of FSCC. Using participatory arts-based methods, survivors shared their stories with researchers and advocates and met to explore the historical, political, social, and cultural particularities and commonalities of FSCC in Canada, Indonesia, and Peru and propose best practices for engaging in future research and action.

Acknowledgements:

We express our gratitude to all who participated in the Forced Sterilization and Coerced Contraception: Towards A Multi-National Agenda Summit and the activities leading up to it, especially to the survivors who shared their time, knowledge, and stories. We also appreciate the support of the artists, interpreters, Poundmaker’s Lodge Treatment Centre (established 1973), and Flat Studio.

We thank the Whiskeyjack Art House for hosting the exhibition Weaving Hearts, Healing Together.

Funding:

This project was made possible through funding from the Kule Institute for Advanced Study, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute, and the Killam Foundation.

About the Project

Art Exhibit

More Resources

About the Project

1. Women Healing Together

Forced Sterilization and Coerced Contraception (FSCC) is one of many practices used to control women’s reproduction. FSCC refers to forcibly or coercively ensuring that women can no longer procreate permanently or temporarily. In Canada, recent revelations have demonstrated these practices that particularly target Indigenous women persist, while in Indonesia, the government continues to strengthen agreements with companies and migrant-receiving countries that limit the reproductive rights of migrant women workers, and in Peru, after 25 years, women who underwent forced sterilization keep pursuing justice.

Forced Sterilization and Coerced Contraception: Towards a Multinational Agenda is a research project whose goal is to generate a FSCC research agenda with survivors by proposing best practices for studying this topic for researchers and survivors, and exploring historical, political, social, and cultural particularities and commonalities of FSCC in Canada, Indonesia, and Peru.

From October to November 2021, we hosted a series of multilingual web-discussions with researchers and advocates, policymakers and private sector representatives, women with lived experience, and healthcare professionals from Canada, Indonesia, and Peru. During the conversations, FSCC survivors mentioned that they were interested in participating in arts-based healing-oriented research.

In spring 2022, we had the opportunity to build a partnership, strengthened in ceremony, with Poundmaker’s Lodge Treatment Centre in Alberta, Canada. This relationship helped us work with Indigenous Canadian women who, working in ceremony, used creative arts to share their responses to forced sterilization. Meanwhile in Indonesia and Peru, local researchers also built and implemented art-based methodologies to explore the healing process of survivors, including ceremonies according to their protocols.

From August 17 – 22, 2022, we hosted the Forced Sterilization and Coerced Contraception: Towards A Multi-National Agenda summit, in Edmonton, Alberta in Amiskwacihwaskihan, Treaty 6 Territory. With the main objective to bring together survivors, advocates, and researchers from the three countries and have a space where we could share our backgrounds, expectations, and journeys.

This project is one of many efforts to contribute to survivors’ claims. We hope to continue joining forces in order to keep working toward justice. If you want to know more about the project, you can visit our web-discussion report.

Web Discussion Report

Web-discussion report Bahasa Indonesia

Web-discussion report Cree

Web-discussion report English

Web-discussion report Spanish

2. Telling Our Stories information

After the web-discussions of 2021, we initiated Telling Our Stories (TOS) in each country, working with survivors and artists to develop art-based methods based to explore the healing processes and struggles of survivors. Their artwork contributed to the summit’s exhibit: Weaving Hearts, Healing Together.

Watch the Videos

Telling Our Stories

Summit Videos

Here is a brief summary of the activities:

Canada

Poundmaker’s Lodge Treatment Centre near St. Albert, Alberta, northern part of Turtle Island, hosted a retreat with Indigenous women from Treaty 6 territory, in July 2022. Using ceremony to focus their intentions of a healing journey, a local artist then guided survivors as they gave shape and dimension to what they wished to say that was expressed through painting on large sheets of glass. The artist returned the words they used into a poem to accompany their painting. After the works were completed, we held a sharing circle where women explained the meanings of their paintings.

Indonesia

In Indonesia, survivors’ stories were collected and documented in collaboration with KABAR BUMI, an organization of former migrant workers and their families in June 2022. The survivors, who are members of KABAR BUMI, recounted their experiences as migrant workers and being forced to use contraceptive injections as a condition of working abroad. The stories were conveyed through drawings and poems to express the survivors’ feelings during and after being forced to use contraceptive injections, as well as their hopes to overcome this issue in the future.

Peru

The Peruvian team conducted the Waytariq Warmi Project in The Healing House Mosoq Pakari Sumac Kawsay in Cusco, June 2022. Where survivors expressed their visual testimony in a collective way and through the art of embroidery, where they were able to share their experiences and their current struggles. We also made a video where the women expressed their feelings in relation to the facts that led to forced sterilization. Finally, they made a performance using the embroidery created on the first day of the project.

Art Exhibit

The Forced Sterilization and Coerced Contraception: Towards A Multi-National Agenda Summit was the first gathering for the project team and survivors of the three countries. During this event hosted at the University of Alberta, researchers, advocates, and survivors sought to tease out commonalities and differences in women’s experiences based on the survivor’s struggles and aims for their future.

Following the idea of the importance of the artwork as a tool to navigate women’s struggles, we also generated collective creative expressions emerging from our reflections. The result was a collective artwork that was presented at the exhibit, with the artwork of the Telling Our Stories projects.

These pictures and videos were part of the exhibition curated by Renee Hart and hosted by Whiskeyjack Art House.