'They had no right': Inuit women recount experiences past and present of forced sterilization

While a national organization seeks to track cases of forced sterilization of Indigenous peoples across Canada, Inuit women in the North say the practice hasn't ended. 

Karen Couperthwaite, who lives in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, N.L., delivered her second son via C-section nine years ago. At the time, she said she asked for tubal ligation – a surgical process that would tie her fallopian tubes and prevent future pregnancies. 

When her family decided to have a third child, she made an appointment to have the ligation reversed. 

That's when she said she found out that her tubes hadn't been tied – they'd been removed instead. Her doctor made the discovery while reading notes in her medical file from the surgeon who performed the operation, she said. 

"He had to give me news that I didn't have my fallopian tubes left to try and conceive naturally," she said. "It's very shocking and hurtful, and the sting is still with me even though it's been two years now." 

Couperthwaite registered with the Survivors Circle for Reproductive Justice, a non-profit launched in 2024 that helps survivors and advocates for reproductive justice for First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. 

It's building a registry to serve as an official record of forced sterilization in Canada. 

Claudette Dumont, the co-chair of the Survivors Circle for Reproductive Justice, said that "removing a woman's ability to have children is a very, very grave injustice." 

"These women are traumatized. They continue to suffer. They were suffering in silence, and this has to be addressed," she said.

That's why the organization held a gathering in Quebec at the start of March, where registered survivors were able to share their experiences with one another – some of those experiences were more recent, like Couperthwaite's, while others happened decades ago. 

Cecilia Papak, who lives in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, told CBC News she was considering registering with the organization. 

She gave birth to her daughter while on a plane from Whale Cove, Nunavut, to Winnipeg. She said she was sent back to Whale Cove, her home at the time, but was eventually medevaced back to the south because she continued to have bad bleeding. 

There, she said, a doctor told her she should stop having children. She refused the surgery at the time. She said doctors kept telling her that if she had more children, she wouldn't be able to watch her kids grow up and wouldn't meet her grandkids.  

"It was so hard for me to accept that," she said.