Peruvian law students from the Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Políticas, Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco are reporting for JURIST on law-related events in and affecting Perú. All of them are from CIED (Centro de Investigación de los Estudiantes de Derecho), a student research centre in UNSAAC’s faculty of law dedicated to spreading legal information and improving legal culture through study and research, promoting critical and reflective debate to contribute to the development of the country. Jose Daniel Yampi Meche is a law student from UNSAAC and a member of CIED. He files this dispatch from Cusco.
The department of Loreto, in the Republic of Peru, belongs to the Peruvian jungle; the people who live in that area are jovial, friendly and very happy. It is a region of extensive area and quite lush vegetation; it is a truly beautiful landscape. However, the thickness of the jungle hides a sad and worrying reality.
Loreto was once a place inhabited by small primitive towns; rubber was extracted for its commercialization, and this brought with it slavery that reached many of the Amazonian settlers. At that time Loreto became an important city, but soon other countries discovered a way to generate their own rubber, as a result, the merchants and bosses began to return to the cities where they belonged. Little by little they left the city of Loreto. Those who stayed there became residents of that place. At present this region is all but forgotten; candidates for the presidency of the Republic of Peru very rarely show work plans that benefit the inhabitants of this region.
Loreto might still be forgotten were it not for August 12, 2023, not even two weeks ago, when Peru’s newscasts started talking about the “Mila case“, the case of a pregnant girl in Loreto who with the help of one of her relatives, criminally denounced her stepfather for rape.
Mila is 11 years old. She can’t read or write. Her stepfather repeatedly abused her since she was 7 years old. The girl’s mother was also victim of violence from her partner, Finally, Mila decided to denounce her stepfather. Buy justice is slow, the stepfather is still free and Mila is afraid of meeting him on the street. But it’s not over yet. Mila, at 18 weeks of her pregnancy, sought a therapeutic abortion. The Loreto Regional Hospital denied her, however, because the required signature of a psychiatrist was missing, prolonging this girl’s suffering. Finally, after a second medical board was appointed to discuss whether the abortion should be performed, they agreed to proceed with the therapeutic abortion, “to avoid serious or permanent harm to her physical and mental health.”
Abortion with the intervention of third parties in Peru is considered a crime, since it is regulated in Article 115 of the Peruvian Penal Code which says that no one can cause an abortion with the consent of the pregnant woman, subject to 4 years of imprisonment. Only in one case is an interruption of pregnancy allowed: in article 119 of the same Code it states that therapeutic abortion is the interruption assisted by a doctor and with the consent of the mother or legal representative. This type of abortion is allowed when the interruption is the only means to save the life of the pregnant woman or prevent her from suffering a serious and permanent illness. In the case of children, the situation is more delicate, because they have not yet finished developing both biologically and mentally.
Between 2017 and 2021, there were 1,620 cases of rape against children and adolescents in the region, according to data from the Women’s Emergency Center (CEM). Peru’s Ombudsman claims that the institutions that deal with these cases expose the victims to conditions of vulnerability, and has therefore requested that the situation of care for victims of rape in Loreto be declared an emergency.
As we can see, the Mila case is not atypical for Loreto, since many girls, boys and adolescents experience rape and sexual abuse firsthand, and do not dare to denounce it because in most cases it is close relatives who commit such abuses, even if, according to statistics, an approximate 267 victims continue to live with their perpetrators. Members of these groups may also suffer from physical violence, lack of family protection, sexual harassment at school, etc. For example, in schools, more than 22 teachers have been dismissed by the UGEL (Local Educational Management Unit) for cases of sexual violence.
The Women’s Emergency Center (CEM) has a small room located in the municipality, where a lawyer and a social worker work. But they do not have a psychologist, so it is the psychologist from the Women’s Ministry, that is, not a psychologist specialized in sexual abuse, who cares for the victims of such abuse. And a lawyer cannot deal with all the cases that arise regarding this topic.
The Ombudsman’s Office has established a specialized prosecutor’s office against violence against women and members of the family group, but they have a burden that exceeds the capacity of that institution, with only 2 observational Gesell chambers for the entire region. Regarding the police stations in the region, they do not have the logistics and trained personnel to deal with this situation.
UNICEF, the UN Human Rights Committee and the CEDAW Committee, and later in 2013 the Committee against Torture, have all urged the Peruvian State to adopt measures to ensure access to effective remedies in these cases and prevent situations of violation of the rights of girls and adolescents, like Mila’s and those of other pregnant minors. However, it is a reality that still persists and continues to wreak havoc.
We need greater interest in guaranteeing and protecting children and adolescents in Loreto, which is a region that is forgotten over time and requires help to strengthen the different institutions within it.
