Canada’s Indigenous women forcibly sterilized decades after other rich countries stopped

By MARIA CHENG
AP Medical Writer

TORONTO (AP) — Decades after many other rich countries stopped forcibly sterilizing Indigenous women, numerous activists, doctors, politicians and at least five class-action lawsuits allege the practice has not ended in Canada. The Canadian Senate issued a report last year confirming Indigenous women continue to be sterilized without their knowledge or consent. Documents obtained by The Associated Press show that a doctor was punished in May for forcibly sterilizing an Inuit woman in 2019. Indigenous leaders say that Canadian officials have done too little to stop the violations and that the country has yet to fully reckon with its troubled colonial past.