Questions raised over U.K. DfID funding and sterilization in India

A Wall Street Journal editorial addresses reports published on April 14 in the Guardian alleging that the U.K. Department for International Development (DfID) funded a program in India that "has 'forcibly sterilized Indian women and men' -- a practice India supposedly left behind in the 1970s," the editorial states. "DfID issued a statement objecting to the Guardian's report, saying that its funding was not meant to be going to 'sterilization' centers, only to helping 'women access a mix of reversible methods of family planning,' such as contraceptive pills, and to 'improve the quality of services,'" the editorial writes, adding, "DfID says it has also offered technical support to help Indian authorities crack down on forced sterilization." According to the Wall Street Journal, "A DfID official, who declined to be named, clarified to us that the national Indian program funded by British taxpayers does include voluntary sterilization, but that sterilization specifically is 'not part of what we fund,'" and "[h]e added that DfID will end its support for the national Indian program next year and will focus family-planning aid only on state governments in India's poorest regions" (5/1).