Forced pregnancy
practice of forcing a woman to become or remain pregnant against their will
Forced pregnancy is the practice of forcefully impregnating a woman or girl without her consent. This act is often as part of a forced marriage, as part of a programme of breeding slaves, or as part of a programme of genocide. Forced pregnancy is a form of reproductive coercion.
Beyond the context of international law, forced pregnancy is defined more broadly, encompassing where abortion is denied, hindered, delayed, or made difficult, including coercive behavior such as threats or acts of violence by perpetrators. As of 2025, 24 countries completely codify forced continuation of pregnancy.
Imperial Japan
Female prisoners of Unit 731 were forced to become pregnant for use in experiments.
Bride kidnapping
The practices of bride kidnapping and forced marriage typically (with the exception of purely symbolic "bride kidnappings" which are actually consensual elopements) involve the rape of the "bride" with the intention of forcing her to become pregnant, putting her in a position where she becomes dependent on the rapist and his family and, because of cultural attitudes toward rape, unable to return to her own family. In Kyrgyzstan, thousands of young girls and women are kidnapped every year to be forced into marriage. Although the practice was outlawed in 2013, bride kidnapping continues to exist, with destructive consequences for society. It is often referred to as a tradition, perceived as the obvious thing to do when the male is ready for marriage.
“Forced pregnancy” enters the record as practice of forcing a woman to become or remain pregnant against their will. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Forced, pregnancy and practice can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5467540. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2025 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Forced pregnancy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.