A Senate committee recommends that “forced and coerced sterilization” be made a criminal offense in Canada, and that those who have been subjected to it receive an apology and compensation from the government.
In part two of its report, tabled Thursday, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights says forced and coerced sterilizations are still practiced in Canada today and that legal and policy responses are needed to address it.
The senators say this “abhorrent practice” disproportionately affects vulnerable and marginalized groups, including Indigenous women, black and racialized women, people with disabilities, intersex children and institutionalized people.
Explicit laws and policies in the 20th century
The report follows a Senate committee study of forced and coerced sterilization in Canada, which began in 2019. It says forced or coerced sterilization refers to surgery to prevent conception, performed “without the consent free, prior and informed of the patient”.
The senators note in this report that Canada has a long history of forced and coerced sterilization, through laws and government policies.
For much of the 20the century, these laws and policies explicitly aimed “to reduce births in First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities, in Black communities, and among people with multiple vulnerabilities related to poverty, race, and gender.” disability,” reads the report.
The Senate Human Rights Committee has been interested in this file for quite some time. In June 2021, he released a preliminary report in which he revealed that “the horrible practice of forced and coerced sterilization still exists”.
Two Indigenous women launched a class action lawsuit in Saskatchewan in 2017, alleging they were sterilized without their consent. In the year that followed, more than 100 more women added their names to the class action.