We demand that the United States Congress pass and enforce a bill outlawing coerced sterilizations and forced medical procedures on detained and incarcerated people by federal law enforcement agencies and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The recent news of the violations at Irwin Detention Center is a continuation of attacks of our bodily autonomy rooted inhumane practices that date back to slavery. If it were not for the bravery of Dawn Wooten, a black woman, who stepped up and reported what was happening we would not be aware this was occurring in our own backyard.

In 2020, in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, Dawn Wooten, who served as a nurse, blew the whistle on human rights violations occurring at the Irwin Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. Georgia-based organizations Project South, GLAHR, Georgia Detention Watch, and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network worked with her and detained immigrants to expose these egregious violations and other abuses happening at the Irwin County Detention Center. They released a 27-page complaint on September 14 to demand investigations of inhumane conditions and shut down detention centers in Georgia. The whistleblower disclosures were submitted in a letter to Congress on September 17. On September 26, 12 members of Congress met with Ms. Wooten, visited Irwin Detention Center, and heard the direct testimonies of detained women who experienced medical neglect, abuse, and retaliation. Within a week, leaders within the delegation passed House Resolution 1153 to condemn the medical abuse and demand a full investigation.

While these are encouraging steps, they treat the abuse at Irwin as though it were an isolated incident rather than a pattern and practice of reproductive oppression within our nation’s carceral system. The medical abuse at Irwin was not singular, it represents a horrific history of reproductive terror and experimentation perpetrated by the US government against primarily Black and Latinx communities in the custody of the state. It reveals itself in forced sterilizations, unchecked sexual abuse, inadequate medical care, lack of prenatal care for pregnant women, including pre-and post-partum shackling, a lack of clean drinking water, rampant use of solitary confinement, and so much more.

While Federal Public Health Law Title 42 regulates the use of sterilization procedures on institutionalized individuals and bans the use of federal funds for inmate sterilization and various state statutory enactments, there still has not been a sweeping declaration by the Supreme Court ruling eugenics or forced sterilization unconstitutional. Without a ruling from the Supreme Court, or affirmative legislation outlawing the practice, our communities remain vulnerable to human rights violations.  

Women Engaged demands a systemic solution for this systemic problem. As an organization committed to the protection and progress of women of color, especially Black women and femmes, WE cannot stand idly by while this terror continues. So, WE are demanding that Congress pass affirmative legislation that would permanently end forced sterilization for detained and incarcerated people across the nation. Please join us in our efforts to #ProtectWOC