I'm from Villa El Salvador,
I arrived here in Lima in 1995.
In those days, here in Lima,
when I arrived, the climate hit me hard
and I couldn't eat or drink with ease.
I was really thin.
So back then I became really sick,
I was unwell because I wasn't eating.
The food here didn't sit well with me.
Back then I was still menstruating.
I was having periods.
Back in those days, when I was on my period...
My story is very sad,
I arrived in Lima in tears
because I felt bad for the suffering of my children.
I couldn't eat properly and I got sick.
I was menstruating,
my menstruation was going well and it passed.
4-5 days on my period,
and my daughter says 'Mum, let's go to the market.'
So we went.
We were doing the shopping at the market
and some people had eaten bananas,
and they dropped the banana skin on the floor,
I didn't realise,
and I stepped onto the skin and I stumbled.
In that moment I felt an unbearable pain in my womb,
I was hurting next to…
I returned to my house crying, bleeding.
I began to bleed again.
This continued for a week.
I would feel pain,
I was having fever, horrific pain in my womb.
Day by day I felt worse.
'Mum, take this medicine,' my daughters told me.
I took it for the fever, I was shaking with cold.
I was getting worse and worse and worse,
and one of my girls says 'Mum, let's go to the hospital,
I'm taking you to the emergency room, you're not well.'
So I say, 'No, I don't want to go,
we can't afford it, how are they going to heal me?'
'No, mum, come on.'
They forced me to go to the emergency room.
So to the María Auxiliadora hospital I went.
My daughters admitted me but I stayed there alone,
they returned home.
They would come back at 10 the following morning.
So, making the most of this, the hospital nurse
comes and greets me, and asks why I have come.
'Because of this and that, miss,' I tell her.
She asks me 'how many children do you have?'
6 I tell her.
'You have too many children, miss.'
'Have you thought about sterilis…
of being… of being sterilised?' she says.
So I tell her, 'No miss, I don't…'
'You already have 6 children, you can't be having any more.
And why? Because life is difficult,
you won't be able to care for or educate your children.
They might get sick, and you won't have…
As time goes on you won't even be able to give them food.'
But this didn't scare me
because I was already raising my children.
Even though we were poor I was raising them fine,
giving them as much education as I was able.
This nurse didn't leave me alone,
and then she says she's going to tie my tubes,
just like that.
She begins to say things.
She was saying nice things about it, right?
But I didn't agree
because I was alone in the hospital.
So I tell her that my husband is coming to discuss
whether or not he agrees.
I tell my husband everything.
'What? Why are they making you do this?' He says.
'They can't make you do this.
If one wants more children, one can have more.
And who doesn't, doesn't,' my husband said.
They were already… the nurse was after me,
the nurse was chubby, medium height.
She went to share this with the doctor.
The doctor came to see me, and told me
'Miss, we have to do this so that you can have an easy life,
so that you don't have more children.'
I felt awful, I felt sad, overwhelmed.
They were forcing me, forcing me. Constantly saying
'We have to sterilise you, we have to do the sterilisation.'
But just then I felt so sad.
I was so sad because my daughters hadn't arrived.
'What do I do?' I was wondering.
'Not even my husband is here for me to tell him
what they are telling me.'
I began to cry dreadfully, and then,
some women that were by my side,
'Miss, don't cry because of this…'
They told me it didn't hurt.
I said 'why would they cut me? They are going to cut me,
they're going to take my organs,' I said.
But the women were telling me it was not the case.
'They are not going to cut you…
They told me that they are going to make a tiny cut
and from there they do everything to you,' she told me.
But I didn't agree.
And then she says…
They convinced me after insisting so much, right?
Different things.
But I felt scared.
I said 'I think this is going to kill me.
And my children aren't going to know where I am.'
My children hadn't arrived, I was alone.
When I said this to the nurse, I saw…
I told her 'Ok miss, but my husband hasn't arrived.'
'No miss, your husband isn't going to say anything because,
on the contrary, he's going to be happy
with what we're doing for you,
you're not going to have children, you'll be able to live peacefully.
You'll only need to raise the ones you already have.'
Oh no! I said 'OK.'
So, at three in the afternoon
they brought the stretcher over.
They told me to take out my earrings,
anything I had on my body.
I took them out and they carried me to the operating room.
When I arrived I needed to urinate.
So I told the doctor 'Doctor, I need to urinate.'
'What a minute.'
They attached a catheter to me.
They didn't ask me to get off the stretcher.
So when I saw this I said,
'Doctor, what are you going to do to me? Why are you…?'
They took my clothes off.
I was laid down, terrified.
And then they made me urinate.
They cleaned my stomach with a yellow liquid
that they wiped across my stomach.
Then a nurse came and took my arm,
and tells me that they are attaching an intravenous drip.
The nurse says 'Miss, count to 5, count to 3...'
'Why, nurse?'
'No, I'm going to attach the I.V.' she says.
It turned out to be something to make me sleep
so that they could operate on me.
They made me sleep and I couldn't feel a thing.
When they woke me, the part they had cut
was horribly painful.
My daughters came looking for me, crying,
because they didn't know where I was.
There, that's it.
Thank you.
So, brothers, friends, if by chance
you hear my story, I want your support.
We're from Peru, we are fighting to achieve
what we want to achieve:
To get support, get justice.
Nothing else, brothers in foreign places.
Please, help us. Thank you.