Key issues facing women and children:

• Machismo
• Legacy of conflict
• Domestic violence

South America’s third largest country, Peru is a country of beautiful and varied geographical regions. These regions include the world’s most arid desert, the Andes mountain range, home to the famous Incan ruin of Machu Picchu, and lush jungle areas surrounding the headwaters of the Amazon River. Peru also shares Lake Titicaca with neighboring Bolivia. Lake Titicaca is the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. The lake is dotted with islands, including floating manmade islands crafted from reeds, and the small communities that call them home.

Peru has endured prolonged political uncertainty and violence. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission found in 2003 that between 1980 and 2000, 69,280 people had died or disappeared as a result of armed conflict. All armed actors involved in the conflict targeted civilians. The Shining Path leftist political party was responsible for at least 46 percent of total deaths and disappearances, and the Peruvian military is known to have suspended civilian Constitutional rights and committed human rights violations. Most of the civilians killed were indigenous minorities living in the Andean highlands. The results of this violence are still felt today; and, despite liberal economic policies and private investment, 70 percent of the Andean population lives in poverty. Average Peruvians are not feeling the results of economic growth.

Today Peru also faces a pervasive attitude of machismo, which has impeded women’s empowerment. A main issue for many women is that of the right to control their own reproductive health. With a population of 27 million people and approximately 400,000 illegal abortions a year, Peru averages one of the highest rates of illegal abortions in the region, and the highest maternal death rate behind Bolivia. Many women report never receiving health education and in many cases men make decisions concerning family planning. Despite small progress made in neighboring Colombia and Brazil, womens’ health and contraceptives are largely absent from public and political discussion in Peru.

Peruvian women also face an array of other impediments to political empowerment and equality. Men’s work is valued fundamentally more than women’s, and the female average literacy rate is ten percent lower than that of men. Within families, spousal abuse remains a serious problem and nearly half of women surveyed nationally report being abused in some way by family members.