Chile apologizes to woman forcibly sterilized for HIV status

By DANIEL POLITI
Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Chile’s president publicly apologized to a woman who was sterilized without her consent at a public hospital two decades ago because she was HIV-positive. The public apology is part of a negotiated settlement that the South American country sealed at the Inter American Commission on Human Rights in Washington after local courts dismissed the case. The forced sterilization of HIV-positive women in Chile was once a common practice, say the NGOs that took Francisca’s case to Washington.