On 14 September the Supreme Court banned mass sterilisation camps in India, putting an end to a system that had become synonymous with medical callousness.
Every year, young women have died in sterilisation camps because of unhygienic conditions and poorly performed procedures. Around 113 women are officially stated to have died after tubectomies in 2015-2016. But it is believed that the actual figures are several times higher than those conceded by the government.
Devika Biswas, a health activist, petitioned the Supreme Court after she witnessed a single surgeon, without gloves, doing tubectomies on 53 women in a school compound. . .