From "Eliminating forced, coercive and otherwise involuntary sterilization," a 2014 policy document issued by OHCHR, UN Women, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and WHO:
Sterilization without full, free and informed consent has been variously described by international, regional and national human rights bodies as a violation of fundamental human rights, including the right to health, the right to information, the right to privacy, the right to decide on the number and spacing of children, the right to found a family and the right to be free from discrimination... Human rights bodies have also recognized that forced sterilization is a violation of the right to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Coercive and involuntary sterilization with the aim of improving the genetic constitution of the human species became an instrument of population and public health control during the heyday of eugenics, between 1870 and 1945. In the early 20th century, laws permitting and encouraging coercive sterilization were passed in many countries, including Germany, Japan and the United States of America. Many hundreds of thousands of people, particularly those with disabilities or from ethnic, religious and other minorities, were sterilized without their consent.
In the years after the Second World War, most countries reformed their laws and practices, abandoning eugenic sterilization and strengthening the requirements for informed consent. However, in some countries it took longer to move away from eugenic sterilization.
During the period from the 1960s to the 1990s, coercive sterilization has been used in some countries (including in Asia, Europe and Latin America) as an instrument of population control, without regard for the rights of individuals. A range of incentives or coercive pressures have been employed to secure agreement to sterilization, including offers of food, money, land and housing, or threats, fines or punishments, together with misleading information.
People living in poverty, indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities have been particularly targeted by such programmes. In many countries, information is not made available in accessible formats and local languages, and informed consent is not obtained before these procedures are carried out.
Some groups, such as transgender and intersex persons, also have a long history of discrimination and abuse related to sterilization, which continues to this day.