2ND LEAD

JPC urges immediate assistance to victims subjected to coercive population control

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 November 2013, 16:56 GMT]
Widespread complaints have been registered from the Tamil women in three villages of Ki'linochchi district that they are suffering from side effects such as blood pressure, weight gain, irregular periods as well as traumatic stress, two months after they have been subjected to coercive population control by the occupying Colombo using Progestogen-only subdermal implants inserted into their body, said the Chairman of Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) of the Catholic Diocese of Jaffna, Fr. S.V.B Mangalarajah in a fresh report issued on Friday. Terming the population control experimented on Tamil women in Vanni as “Mu'l'livaaykkaal-2”, the JPC has urged the provincial health ministry under the newly elected Northern Provincial Council to do the needful to remove the implants and assist the victims to return to normal lives.

Some of the victims have been admitted to hospital, and some have faced disputes within the family as a direct consequence of the birth control carried out on them, Fr Mangalarajh said in his latest report.

The JPC has also included the anonymized witness statements, which were earlier reported through a group known as The Social Architects (TSA).



On 31st of August, 2013, women in three coastal area villages in the Ki'linochchi district (Valaip-paadu, Vearaavil and Kiraagnchi) were subjected to coercive population control.

More than 20 nurses and midwives came from Ki'linochchi and went from door to door in these three villages and asked all the young mothers to come to the Veravil district hospital with their children under 5 years. They were transported by ambulances and were told by the visiting health workers to come to the local clinic to weigh their children under 5-years.

Upon arrival, the doctor present there and nurses used coercive language and manipulated medical information to convince the women to take Progestogen-only subdermal implants (POSDIs) a long-term hormonal birth control inserted under the skin of the women's upper arm.

When the women expressed their unwillingness to receive it they were told that in that case they will not be given any other treatment in the hospital in future.

They were also threatened that if they refused to comply their husbands would be brought to the hospital so that the procedure could be performed on them. After hearing this, a lot of women were compelled to accept the ‘treatment’.

A substantial number of people in these villages are Catholics.

“We are having serious doubts about the motive behind this kind of state policies and this may be a method of controlling the population this side. Besides as Catholics we are strongly opposed to this kind of methods of birth control,” the JPC report further said.

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