‘It’s the first time I’ve woven in 27 years’: Peruvian women revive arts lost to trauma of forced sterilisations

Woven chumpi – traditional belts worn by women in the Sacred Valley of the Incas – are embroidered with the words ‘pain’, ‘work’ and ‘anaesthetic’. Photograph: Erwan Nicolay-Kritter/Nadege Justiniani

Ricardina Huaman Folopa carefully pinches and counts wool threads with her fingers: 87 – the exact number of pairs of threads needed to weave a chumpi, a belt traditionally made by women in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Here, in the Indigenous community of Huayllacocha, south of Machu Picchu, she is part of a quiet revolution taking place.

• Ricardina Huaman Folopa didn’t weave for 27 years after her forced sterilisation, as it was too painful for her