In late May 2024, Indigenous leader and teacher Rosemary Pioc raised the alarm on behalf of the regional women’s council of the Awajun and Wampis Indigenous communities. According to her research, at least 520 students experienced sexualized violence perpetrated by their lecturers between 2010 and 2024. Rosemary criticized the authorities’ indifference, impunity, and corruption, as neither the justice system nor the responsible institutions could protect the victims. By June, 80% of the 524 accused teachers were still working as lecturers in the Amazon region.
The authorities in Lima initially attempted to downplay the revelations by placing the “cultural practices of family formation” of the indigenous communities under the main suspicion. This racist victim-blaming sparked public outrage and protests. According to UNICEF, 34 minors in Peru are victims of sexual violence every day, 92% of them girls. Every day, 4.75 girls under the age of 15 give birth to a child as a result of abuse.
Transformative Strategies Against Sexual Violence
The Peruvian Women’s Center (PFZ) Flora Tristan, a feminist partner organization of Mission 21, has been defending women’s rights for over 45 years. Their goal is to defend the right to a life free of violence and gender equality. They raise awareness among authorities, organize public protests, and push for legal reforms. In the Indigenous communities where they work, they develop context-specific strategies through intercultural dialogue, addressing key factors such as gender, poverty, racism, the effects of climate change, and the exploitation of nature by (il)legal actors. Theater-based methods, such as sociodrama, help break taboos and enable the victims themselves to name the crime. Everyday realities are reenacted, giving the collective the opportunity to reflect on what happened, learn about their rights, and identify and address support and enforcement services.
The prevention of sexual violence is also linked to strategies promoting ecological farming, income generation, and political participation of women. Women and women’s associations become knowledge sources for soil fertility, ensuring access to nutritious food for their households and communities while also creating income. This makes them key players in climate protection, and they gain more influence in households and communities, which significantly improves prevention efforts.
Shrinking Civil Society Space
Sexual violence experienced by Indigenous Awajun and Wampis minors has severe consequences for their physical and mental health, such as sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, and suicides. Where the state fails, strong female figures and civil society organizations like PFZ Flora Tristan are indispensable. However, their scope of action is shrinking. Since 2022, their protests and demands against the gender backlash and systematic erosion of democracy in Peru have been loud and clear. This has further fueled sexual violence and set back political efforts and legal achievements in gender equality by decades.