A former resident of Urumqi, the capital of China’s western Xinjiang region, the 38-year-old Uyghur woman said she was fined 18,400 yuan ($2,600) in 2018 for having three children, one more than she was allowed to under Chinese rule.

When she went to pay the fine, Dawut said she was told she’d also need to have a mandatory “birth control procedure.”

She said she was taken to a clinic, where she was hooked up to an IV and given a general anesthetic. A local doctor later told her she’d undergone a tubal ligation, a procedure that uses keyhole surgery to clip, cut or tie a woman’s fallopian tubes.

The doctor said the procedure was permanent — she wouldn’t be able to have any more children.

Dawut’s story is not unique. For years, Uyghur women both inside Xinjiang and around the world have accused the Chinese government of a campaign of abuse, including forced sterilization, cultural indoctrination and incidents of sexual violence.