Forced sterilisation in Peru: nearly 315,000 men and women were forced to undergo this procedure about 30 years ago. As the government’s way of combating poverty, the Peruvian Ministry of Health set quotas for sterilisation, and the doctors were rewarded for complying with them. Officially, participation in this social programme was purely voluntary. But that is not the story of thousands of Peruvian women, most of whom were peasants from the poorest villages.