Women missing, abused and murdered during quarantine: the other pandemic in Peru
In January, the case of Solsiret Rodríguez was widely publicized, whose fate did not attract the attention of the authorities until her mutilated body was found in a house in Lima
“We need to know what happened to them”. This forceful phrase was recently expressed by the Ombudsman of Peru, Walter Gutiérrez, in reference to the 915 women that his office reports as missing since the quarantine began due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the disappearance of women is an endemic problem in Peru. Before the quarantine measures, an average of five cases a day were reported, but the pandemic has exacerbated this unfortunate reality and with it, the vulnerability of women in the Andean country. The number of missing women has risen from five to eight a day during the confinement.
These indicators were presented during the last week of July by the Ombudsman’s Office, through its main spokesperson, Walter Gutiérrez. Of the 915 women officially reported as missing, what draws even more attention — generating alarm and concern — is that 70% are minors.
These women disappeared in Peru during the three and a half months of the confinement measures applied because of the pandemic, an increase compared to previous figures.
“During the quarantine, from March 16 to June 30, 915 women were reported missing in Peru”, said Eliana Revollar, head of Women’s Rights of the Ombudsman’s Office, to AFP.
What happened to them?
“We need to know what happened to them,” said the Ombudsman, Walter Gutiérrez, in statements to the Peruvian media RPP Noticias.
Meanwhile, Revollar stated that “the cases of girls and adolescents are the highest because they exceed 70% of the total number of missing women”. She indicated that, although some of these women appeared later, due to the lack of a national police registry, it is unknown how many are still missing.
“There is a resistance from the police to take up these cases. We demand that the national registry of disappeared persons be concluded”, said Revollar.
According to several feminist NGOs, the police and the prosecutors do not bother much to investigate because they believe that these women left voluntarily, without paying attention to the fact that the country has high numbers of femicides and that there are networks of human trafficking and forced prostitution.
For this reason, the Ombudsman’s Office has asked the Government to put the registry into operation as soon as possible, to identify the exact number of women who are still missing, to know which ones have been found already alive or dead, and to adopt preventive measures for those in situations of greater risk.
Women are also victims of murder
In January, Solsiret Rodríguez, a university student and activist against gender violence who disappeared the 23rd of August 2016, was found and the case was widely publicized. Her fate did not attract the attention of the authorities until her mutilated body was found in a house in Lima.
In 2019, there were 166 femicides in Peru and a tenth of them were classified, at first, as disappearances.
The Ombudsman’s Office demanded that the investigations be expedited so that the victims, both direct and indirect, can obtain justice and reparation. In the case of violent deaths, it is also urgent that they be properly classified.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) called on the State to investigate the cases diligently and with a gender perspective. It also told the State to fulfill “its duty to comprehensively protect the rights of adolescent girls”.
The institution warned that “there are still pending measures that must be implemented” to achieve an effective search for these women. “Violence against women does not stop”, reported the newspaper El Comercio.
In the first two months of the quarantine, 12 femicides and 26 attempted femicides were registered. In addition, 226 girls and adolescents were victims of sexual abuse and there were 27,997 calls to report domestic violence, according to the Ministry of Women.
Confinement made violence against women worse
The Minister of Women, Gloria Montenegro, offered more worrying data about women. According to their figures, the disappearances already amount to 1,200 and, in addition, 600 girls and adolescents have suffered sexual abuse since the quarantine began.
The number of complaints of women — whose whereabouts have been completely unknown since the beginning of 2020 — reaches 2,415, of which 737 are adults and 1,720 minors.
“So far we have 36 registered femicides. We have achieved life sentences, or more than 30 years in many cases. We work with the police and the Public Ministry so that the arrest is immediate”, informed Montenegro, who also said that to these data must be added another 32 attempts at femicide and 15 violent deaths.
Regarding this crisis of violence against women, Eliana Revollar points out that these months of pandemic and quarantine have exacerbated sexual violence against women. Mainly, due to the serious problems of family overcrowding that has forced women to “be confined” with their aggressors, “who can be their partners, parents, step-parents, grandparents, uncles”.
In addition, she indicates that the pandemic has put on the table one of the strongest contrasts in Peruvian society, social inequality, a situation that has not improved despite the fact that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has passed from 51,745 million to $ 222,045 million, since the beginning of the 21st century.
Despite these encouraging economic figures for any country, the inequality matrix has not changed: at least two million more houses are needed, and only in Lima the housing deficit is 51%. The request of the State to “stay at home” and protect oneself from the virus has collided with this reality, because in addition, most workers obtain their daily sustenance on the street, that is, informally.
The quarantine began on March 16, together with the total closure of borders, night curfews and the prohibition of interprovincial passenger transport. Since July 1, the confinement was officially lifted in 18 of the 25 regions of the country, but it continues in seven departments where infections are still not decreasing: Áncash, Arequipa, Ica, Huánuco, Junín, San Martín and Madre de Dios.
With 33 million inhabitants, Peru registers — according to the interactive map of Johns Hopkins University — more than 423,000 cases of COVID-19 and 19,400 deaths. It is also the seventh country in the world with the highest number of infections and the third in Latin America, a situation that maintains a deep health and sanitary crisis that acutely affects the economic and social spheres of the Peruvians.
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