Colombia Pilots Free Voluntary Sterilization Program
Colombian health institutions today launched a controversial voluntary sterilization program that provides free surgical birth control procedures for men and women in Cucuta and Roncesvalles municipalities, and expect to perform 500 operations by July.

Olga Cristina Jaimes, secretary of the private institution Equidad y Participación de la Mujer, said men and women with four or more children among the two poorest strata of the population will be able to undergo tubal ligations and vasectomies for free.

Promoting free sterilization for the poorest segments of society has set health authorities and the population, and the Catholic Church and some international organizations on opposite sides of the fence.

While people choose the procedures to avoid bringing more people into a world of chronic misery and hunger, the Church accuses the official program of violating individual liberties.

But one thing is certain - thousands of Colombian men and women have shown their willingness to undergo these surgical interventions. María Belén Parada, a 40 year old housewife, with five children, one of the first who will be sterilized today, declared to the press that her family"s income is not enough to provide them all with food and education.

Lucy Wartenberg, from the UN Population Fund, says that promoting one single contraceptive method goes against women"s rights and Senator Carlos Gaviria said that contrary to helping to fight poverty it fails to explain the risks of unwanted pregnancies.

Jaimes said the Social Protection Ministry supports different methods of birth control, and is piloting the sterilization program in Cucuta and Tolima Departments, but the autonomous local governments are free to choose the contraceptive methods they deem best.