High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Compulsory sterilization (or sterilisation) also known as forced sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. In the first half of the twentieth century, several such programs were instituted in countries around the world, usually as part of eugenics programs intended to prevent the reproduction and multiplication of members of the population considered to be carriers of defective genetic traits. Forced sterilization has been recognized as crime against humanity if the action is part of a widespread or systematic practice by the Rome Statute Explanatory Memorandum, which defines the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.