Women in Peru face one of the highest levels of gender-based violence in Latin America, along with structural barriers to accessing vital healthcare such as abortion and contraception.
The Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations (MIMP) recorded 71,717 cases of psychological violence, 63,692 cases of physical violence and 12,524 cases of sexual assault against women last year — but the actual number is much higher due to underreporting.
A 2023 survey of women found that more than half (53.8%) had been subjected to psychological, physical or sexual violence from their partner or ex-partner. It is estimated that 80% of women and girls have experienced gender-based violence at least once in their life.
Moreover, there were 170 reported cases last year of femicide — the killing of a woman or girl on account of their gender — which represents a 13% rise from 2023.
Peru’s ombudsman recorded 7097 enforced disappearances of women and girls last year — a 37% rise from 2023 — with 65% being under 18 years old. Such abductions are a form of violence linked to femicides, sex trafficking and sexual abuse.
Despite the escalating crisis, less than 30% of women report gender-based violence incidents to the authorities.
A lack of protections for women seeking to report incidents leaves them vulnerable to reprisals from a violent partner or ex-partner.
Police stations across the country consistently refuse to process reports of incidents presented by women. Police also perpetrate gender-based violence — committing and covering up cases of femicide, sexual abuse and sex trafficking.
Even when women manage to report violence, they come up against Peru’s deeply patriarchal justice system — less than 1% of reported cases of gender-based violence result in the perpetrator being sentenced.
Contraceptives, abortion rights
The government’s failure to provide easily accessible contraceptives — women in Peru have some of the lowest usage rates in Latin America — leads to tens of thousands of unplanned pregnancies every year.
Furthermore, abortion is illegal in Peru, even in cases of rape. While technically allowed in cases where the pregnant person’s health or life is at risk, in practice, it is difficult to access a safe abortion.
The penalties for getting an abortion can be up to five years in prison, with up to four years for anyone who performs, or assists in, an abortion.
By law, doctors are required to report women seeking an abortion to the police, where they often face harassment and fines.
The punitive laws force pregnant people to undergo abortions in clandestine, unsafe conditions, which pose serious health risks. Unsafe abortion is the fourth-leading cause of maternal death, with 50–70 people dying from abortion complications each year.
The lack of access to abortion amplifies Peru’s crisis of rape of underage people leading to pregnancies. Women’s Emergency Centres attended to 7614 cases of rape against girls and adolescents in 2022, while the health ministry recorded 1624 births to mothers younger than 15 years old.
Access to abortion is lower in rural and remote areas, where healthcare is generally poorer and people have to travel long distances to access medical services. For Indigenous communities, health information is usually only provided in Spanish, not their mother tongue.
Gov’t response
The government’s response to the escalating crisis has been to defend police violence against women and introduce regressive laws that undermine women’s rights.
The government plans to eliminate or merge the MIMP, which provides under-resourced but key services, such as gender-based violence hotlines, shelters and educational resources.
Congress approved an authoritarian new law on March 12, widely dubbed the “Anti-NGO Law”, which allows the government to sanction, fine and dissolve NGOs for “acting against the state”.
An example that is now considered a sanctionable offence would be NGOs helping women in legal cases seeking justice for the thousands of human rights’ violations committed by state actors — police, military and paramilitaries.
Colonialism
Spanish colonisers imposed a system of patriarchal rule, deployed gender-based violence as a tool of oppression and established sexist norms during their conquer of the continent.
The colonial legacies of widespread poverty, racial discrimination and gender inequalities are often the root causes of gender-based violence. Colonised countries are 50 times more likely to have a high incidence of violence against women.
In Peru, women perform the majority of unpaid domestic labour — even if they are employed — which amounts to at least nine extra hours of total workload than men per week, on average.
Only half of working age women have paid work, which is more likely to be in the informal sector, and therefore generally lower paid and more precarious. The gender wage gap is 25%.
Women, particularly Indigenous and Afro-Peruvian women, are the most impacted by ongoing colonialism.
A report by the Latin American Network of Women Defenders of Social and Environmental Rights (RLMDDSA) highlights the unique impacts of historical and ongoing colonisation on women: “The oppression of Latin American women’s bodies at the present time is deeply pervaded by the European invasion of Latin America.”
Spanish colonisers imposed the latifundio — a semi-feudal system of land ownership where usually one individual or family owns vast tracts of land worked by cheap or slave labour.
This concentrated latifundio model has never been dismantled, meaning that land ownership remains highly concentrated, now in the hands of agribusiness companies predominantly owned by men. For example, 65% of the irrigated land on the coast is owned by just 30 companies.
As land ownership becomes increasingly concentrated, the land owned or worked by campesinos (small-scale farmers) has become increasingly fragmented and reflective of gender inequalities. A 2021 study found that, in rural areas, men owned all the land in the majority of households (77.6%). In only 9.8% of cases did women completely own the household’s land.
Land that was previously controlled by communities has been swallowed up by agribusiness companies and rich landowners, further reducing women’s access to their territory.
“Spaces that had a communal use are now monopolised by men,” the RLMDDSA report said, “producing new power relations that exclude women and children”.
Despite the constant repression and exclusion, women — particularly Indigenous women — are at the frontlines of resistance to extractivism and the dispossession, violence and pollution intrinsic to the expansion of the mining and oil industry. The environmental degradation caused by extractivism is another form of patriarchal violence, because of its specific impacts on women.
Women-led resistance, not just against extractivism and environmental violence, is a potent force in Peru.
The Ni Una Menos (Not One Woman Less) protest in 2016 against government inaction over femicides and gender-based violence was the biggest march in the country’s history. Support for women-led grassroots movements in Peru is crucial for realising the structural changes required to confront the crisis of gender-based violence and inequality.