More than 1,200 women and girls have been reported missing throughout Peru since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the country’s Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations (MIMP). The Peruvian government imposed a lockdown from March 16 through the end of June, a time period in which the majority of the disappearances took place.
The South American country, which is home to over 32 million people, has seen a rise in domestic violence cases and femicides over the past decade. Experts believe that the pandemic, which required many in Peru to stay at home, has exacerbated the issue.
Isabel Ortiz, a leading Peruvian women’s rights official who recently called for the creation of a national missing persons registry, spoke with Reuters about the ongoing situation.
“The figures are really alarming,” Ortiz said. “We know the numbers of women and girls who have disappeared, but we don’t have detailed information about how many have been found … We need to have a proper register that would allow us to link the disappearance of women to other crimes like human trafficking and sexual violence.”
In April, the MIMP began efforts to combat pandemic-related disappearances by initiating a telephone program in rural areas of the country to link Indigenous leaders and local authorities to the national government. The program saw promising results at first, with assistance being provided to 88 community authorities and 120 women leaders from the beginning of the country’s lockdown to April 19. Despite this program, disappearances continued to rise throughout the country.
In July, Deputy Minister of Women Nancy Tolentino Gamarra directed the High-Level Multisectoral Commission to implement new strategies to prevent violence against women and girls in the context of the pandemic. The most notable outcome of this meeting was the Ministry of the Interior agreeing to implement a national missing persons registry in “a timely manner.” However, as of this article’s publication, no such registry has been created.
Jacqui Hunt, a prominent women’s rights activist from the nongovernmental organization Equality Now, explained in an interview with Independent how more work needs to be done to prevent disappearances.
“Peru has one of the highest rates of violence against women in Latin America, and the coronavirus pandemic has worsened what was already a dire situation,” Hunt said. “COVID-19 response measures introduced by the Peruvian government must address the particular vulnerabilities of women and girls. Strict enforcement of laws against domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence should be imposed and the justice system should be applying a gender-based lens when investigating and prosecuting cases.”
The United Nations has recommended on numerous occasions that the Peruvian government take significant measures to “promote the rule of law and access to justice for all,” with its most recent report coming out on May 8, 2019. The U.N. Development Program currently ranks Peru 82nd in the world for both intimate partner and non-intimate partner violence against women.
Jacob Sutherland
is a recent graduate from the University of California San Diego where he majored in Political Science and minored in Spanish Language Studies. He previously served as the News Editor for The UCSD Guardian, and hopes to shed light on social justice issues in his work.