Second rate victims: the forced sterilization of Indigenous peoples in the USA and Canada

Author: Leonardo Pegoro

In: Settler Colonial Studies, Vol 5, No 2, 2015, pp. 161-173

The author examines the decades of enforced sterilization of Indigenous women in North America in the 20^th century and the influence of eugenics ideologies on this policy.  Use of sterilization was most common from the 1940s to the 1970s, when the Indigenous populations began (after centuries of decline) to increase in numbers. This trend alarmed both eugenicists anxious to maintain racial ‘purity’, and corporations seeking to exploit resources on indigenous lands. 

See also: Howard-Hassmann, Rhoda, ‘Forced sterilizations of Indigenous women: One more act of genocide’, The Conversation, 4 March 2019.

https://theconversation.com/forced-sterilizations-of-indigenous-women-one-more-act-of-genocide-109603

See also: Virdi, Jaipreet, ‘The coerced sterilization of Indigenous women’, New Internationalist, 30 November 2018.

https://newint.org/features/2018/11/29/canadas-shame-coerced-sterilization-indigenous-women

Both links expose the forced sterilization of Canadian Indigenous women for several decades, up to the 2000s.