NEW DELHI: Women in rural India are being sterilized under torchlight at dilapidated state-run hospitals by doctors who are given annual sterilization targets, one of India's leading human rights activists has claimed in a petition filed in India's topmost court. The Supreme Court of India has now asked state and federal governments to respond to the petition by Bihar-based activist Devika Biswas, that sterilization camps were being conducted in unhygienic conditions across the country with scant regard for human life. Speaking to Bikyamasr.com from her Bihar home, Biswas said that while the government had a standard manual for conducting sterilizations on ground the story was different and that women were being treated like cattle by hospital authorities who were given sterilization targets. “Their target is 1 per cent population of the (village) block should be sterilized per year. I have evidence to show that sterilization operations are conducted under torchlight. The operations are conducted without even consent forms and the poor uneducated women are not even informed about other contraception choices which are available,” Devika said. Devika in her petition has also questioned the efficacy of these sterilization programs, claiming that there have been several instances where the operations have failed all across India. “There is the case of 40-year-old Jitni Devi from Araria district in Bihar. She works as a laborer and has six children. She underwent sterilization last year and yet she is three months pregnant. Her eldest daughter is already a mother and now she is the joke of her community as a grandmother who got pregnant yet again,” Devika said, adding that three criminal complaints had already been filed with the Bihar police authority against failed sterilizations. Both the state governments and the central government have been given eight weeks to respond to the notice issued by the Supreme Court in connection with Devika's petition.
