What Is Bad for Democracy in Peru Is Bad for Women
HAVANA TIMES – “We are facing a deeply conservative government that is opening the doors to all sorts of setbacks. We have a failed state with a democracy that is no longer a democracy,” stated Gina Vargas, a Peruvian feminist internationally recognized for her contributions to women’s rights.
In an interview with IPS from her home in Lima, Vargas shared her views on Peru, a country with 34 million inhabitants, currently going through a deep political crisis that weakens its democratic institutions, negatively affecting the rights of more vulnerable groups, such as women and the LGBTI+ population.
The female population exceeds 17 million according to the government’s National Institute of Statistics and Informatics, while a 2019 study by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights estimated that the adult sexual diversity population reached 1.7 million.
Vargas, one of the founders of the feminist Flora Tristán Center for the Peruvian Woman, one of the oldest organizations in Latin American feminism, argued that the conservative forces, expressed as the far-right in Peru, are trying to reclaim what they have lost in terms of values over the last three decades.
That period began with the approval of the Beijing Global Action Platform, which led to the creation of standards and mechanisms for advancing women’s rights.
In September 1995, 30 years ago, the Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development, and Peace was held in the Chinese capital, convened by the United Nations. Representatives from 189 countries participated, not only from governments but also from women’s and feminists movements.
Sociologist by profession, Gina Vargas will turn 80 in July. She coordinated the participation of civil society organizations from Latin America and the Caribbean in the global forum, as well as their contributions to the Platform, which brings together commitments from states regarding 12 areas of action on women’s issues globally.
She highlighted that in this framework, mechanisms at the highest level were established to promote equality of rights, which in the case of Peru is currently the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations (MIMP). However, this will be diluted in the upcoming regressive wave with a merger with the Ministry of Inclusion and Social Development.
“The conservatives are taking away everything they believe goes against their traditional principles, when the reality for Peruvian women is one of discrimination, violence, femicides, sexual abuse of girls, and the denial of therapeutic abortion,” she deplored.
According to official figures, 170 femicides occurred nationwide in 2024. The total for the last three years was 450 when including victims from 2022 and 2023. Peru has a law against violence against women and family members, and it has incorporated the crime of femicide into the Penal Code.
These are serious issues that, three decades ago, were weakly addressed by the state or were absent from its agenda. But Vargas emphasized that the Beijing Platform left a set of commitments to be fulfilled and expanded, as has happened in many countries.
“But in Peru, there is brutal resistance in a context where there is no balance of powers and the Legislature is passing laws to co-opt different democratic institutions in its desire to control the country,” she underlined.
The legislature’s work is approved by only 5% of the population, and the approval rating of President Dina Boluarte is at 6%, according to the latest polls, reflecting one of the periods of the greatest discredit of state powers in the country.
Both powers are seen as colluding for personal interests, closely linked to corruption, and incapable of addressing issues like citizen insecurity and poverty, two of the most pressing problems in this South American Andean country.
Vargas warned, “We are facing a failed state, with the advance of fundamentalism, authoritarianism, and the imposition of the right. Definitely, what is not good for democracy is by no means good for us or for sexual diversities.”
Fear of Losing Rights
Antonella Martel, 29 years old and a psychologist by profession, grew up in a country that already had a favorable framework for women’s rights and guaranteed gender equality, established in the 1979 Constitution, which remained unchanged since 1993.
She is aware that she had access to more opportunities than her mother and grandmothers. “Now, the traditional roles of women and men are being questioned; they are not normalized as before. There are also laws against gender-based violence, although access to justice is complicated,” she told IPS.
In the current context, she expressed fear that the rights gained could be lost. “There is distrust in the institutions that are not allies of women’s struggles nor play a protective role in their rights,” she commented.
One of her biggest concerns is that the setbacks and the disappearance of the Ministry of Women due to the merger with another ministry will weaken the state’s action against violence. “That problem is something we women live with every day, and it could get worse,” she said.
They Don’t Want to See Us
María Ysabel Cedano, 59, a lawyer for the feminist pro-human rights organization Demus and an associate of the non-governmental Lesbianas Independientes Feministas Socialistas, said that the planet is going through a new fascist stage, which in Peru has its own version in Fujimorism and its conservative political allies, whether ideologically right or left-wing.
The late Alberto Fujimori governed autocratically from 1990 to 2000 and established an ultraconservative movement that is now expressed in the political party Fuerza Popular, the largest legislative group, led by his daughter Keiko Fujimori.
Fujimori was the only head of state to attend the Beijing Conference, where he promoted his new National Population Policy and his birth control measures. It later became known that these included the forced, mass, and non-consensual sterilization of the poor and indigenous, particularly in rural areas, a practice that affected around 300,000 women.
“We are facing the hijacking of democracy as a political horizon, a system that, despite its flaws, allowed the expansion of freedoms and rights such as equality and non-discrimination, access to justice, and those related to women, which have been the result of sustained struggles,” Cedano reflected in an interview with IPS.
She explained that anti-rights groups have not been satisfied with taking the state as a prize through corruption; they operate as a regime attacking everything that opposes their beliefs, seeking to impose a totalitarian mindset.
By the end of 2024, the institution Transparency released a report on 20 laws passed by the Congress that weakened democracy, favored the actions of criminal groups, and eroded human and environmental rights.
“They don’t need the typical wars with lethal weapons; they have developed technological mechanisms to appropriate minds and hearts through denialism and disinformation,” she highlighted.
Cedano referred to Argentina, where libertarian President Javier Milei is dismantling rights achievements, and the massive rejection of that by the population on Saturday, February 1st. Along with her Lesbianas Independientes Feministas Socialistas collective, she joined the solidarity rally in front of the Argentine embassy.
“Argentina generates and radiates outrage. It experienced and enjoyed dignity and knows what it has lost, while in Peru, we don’t know because we have never had anything,” she said regarding the rights for the LGBTI+ population.
She noted that there are not even laws for gender identity or same-sex marriage. “In reality, we survive without enjoying rights, living in a so-called democracy without being citizens,” she added.
The lesbian activist also denounced that they have been stigmatized and accused of atrocities, such as wanting to “homosexualize” children, using this as an attack on comprehensive sexual education in schools.
She mentioned that the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights study reveals that 71% of the population perceives that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trans people suffer from discrimination. “We are part of the lists of suicides, bullying, school dropouts, and sexual assaults. They want us to live in the ghetto, on the fringe,” she stated.
In a context where democratic institutions are incapable of guaranteeing people’s rights and the Ministry of Women, as the body responsible for gender equality, is soon to disappear with the merger, the outlook for the rights of non-heterosexual people is at greater risk.
“Lesbians are not invisible because we are hiding in the closet, but because no one wants to see you or let you be seen. They make you feel guilty and responsible for the consequences of coming out to live fully in the light… and that involves multiple and terrible acts of violence,” Cedano emphasized.
First published in Spanish by IPS and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.