About this Crisis - The indigenous of Latin America - Index

Indigenous Women, Children at Risk

Within Latin America

The section last updated July 9, 2007

Latin American Indigenous Issues Index

1 - Overview

2 - Special Coverage of Guatemala

3 - Indigenous Women in Brazil

4 - Indigenous Women in Peru

5 - Indigenous Women in El Salvador

6 - Indigenous Women in Mexico

7- Indigenous Women's Issues in Colombia (New)

8- More Indigenous Women's Issues

Mexico Massacre at Acteal

Commemorating the 8th Anniversary of the Murder of 45 Mayan Women, Children and Men in Chiapas, Mexico - December 22, 1997.

4 - Indigenous Women in Peru

Disappeared Girls in Peru

Elida Olarte - 14

Mara Rojas - 11

"We work without funds, supported only by enthusiastic volunteerism. In Peru, as in many Latin American Countries, the conditions of sexual exploitation and child labor are very serious issues. These conditions motivate child abductions, creating a situation requiring a response from the entire world."

Gonzalo Sarmiento L.,

Executive President
The Foundation for Disappeared Peruvians

Indigenous mother and child - Peru

See also:

In a historic ruling, Peru's Supreme Court authorized on Sept. 23 [2006] the extradition request for Hurtado, who years ago confessed to being responsible for the Aug. 14, 1985 massacre of 74 children, women and old men in the Andean highlands village of Accomarca, in the southeastern region of Ayacucho.

...The lawyer for the victims' families, Karin Ninaquispe, who kept the legal process going single-handedly, told IPS that of the 74 villagers killed that day in Accomarca, 30 were children ranging in age from six months to 14 years, 20 were between the ages of 25 and 40, and the remaining 24 were between the ages of 55 and 80. Most of the adults were women, including an 80-year-old grandmother.

From Hurtado's Peruvian Court Martial testimony:

"I ordered the assault group under my charge to open fire, while I threw a hand grenade inside (the house) with the intention of eliminating anyone who might be merely injured. I took the decision to eliminate the injured because there were too many of them."

- Inter Press Service (IPS)

October 17, 2007

LibertadLatina note:

Like many of the other 'dirty wars' that took place in Latin America in the last 25 years, Peru's anti-guerilla campaign leveraged their military activities to engage genocidal ethnic cleansing of indigenous populations as occurred in this case.

As democracy finally takes hold in these nations, we look forward to seeing more mass-murdering criminals like Hurtado, who especially relished their role in raping and murdering women and children, face justice!

- Chuck Goolsby LibertadLatina

July 4, 2007

About the crisis in indigenous Peru

Added July 04, 2007

Peru

Indigenous youth recruited in Peru for special Web design course.

- Indian Country Today

July 04, 2007

Added Dec. 25, 2005

Peru

The Peruvian government has approved 12 charges on which it will seek the extradition of former President Alberto Fujimori from Chile.

Mr Fujimori, who denies any wrong-doing, faces charges of corruption and organizing death squads in Peru.

- BBC News

Dec. 22, 2005

Added Nov. 16, 2005

Ecuador, Peru

Rescatan a tres peruanas víctimas de trata de personas en Ecuador

Peruvian and Ecuadorian authorities have collaborated to rescue two of three recently kidnapped & trafficked children.

A 1-month-old baby girl was kidnapped from Peru by a German woman, and taken to Quito, the capitol of Ecuador. Police have arrested the kidnapper, and are working to return the girl to her mother.

In a second case, two sisters, ages 13 an 17, were kid-napped by two sex traffickers in Lima Peru. The victims were taken to Ecuador's largest city, the port of Guayaquil. The younger sister has been rescued by police, who are continuing a search for the 17-year-old victim and the two kidnappers.

- CPNRadio.com.pe

Peru

Nov. 14, 2005

Added Nov. 16, 2005

Peru

Alberto Fujimori

Presentan queja a INTERPOL contra dependencias de Japón y México.

The Peruvian government has presented a formal complaint in Lyon, France in regard to the refusal of INTERPOL offices in Japan and Mexico to provide information to Peru about the internal travel plans of Peru's exiled ex-president Alberto Fujimori. An international arrest warrant exists for Fujimori, who was arrested in Chile at the request of Peru.

Peru is pursuing Fujimori extradition on 21 charges of corruption and human rights violations that occurred during his 1990-2000 term.

- CPNRadio.com.pe

Peru

Nov. 14, 2005

LibertadLatina Note:

Fujimori is wanted in part in relation to atrocities committed against the large Quechua-speaking Indigenous population of Highland Peru. An estimated 300,00 Native women were sterilized against their will during Fujimori's reign. Three fourths of the 69,000 people killed during a brutal civil war with Quechuan civilians, many of whom were murdered by Fujimori's secretive death squads.

See also:

Added Nov. 16, 2005

Fujimori detention ruled legal.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori on Tuesday lost a second bid to be released from his eight-day arrest as he fights extradition to Peru on human rights and corruption charges.

A three-member panel of the Santiago Court of Appeals turned down a request for Fujimori's release, ruling that the arrest of the 67-year-old former president was legal, according to one of the judges, Lamberto Cisternas.

That means Fujimori, who is being held at an academy for corrections officers, will remain under arrest as Peru pursues his extradition on 21 charges of corruption and human rights stemming from his 1990-2000 government...

- Associated Press

Nov. 15, 2005

Peru

Alberto Fujimori:
hora de recordar
el genocidio. (Time to recall the genocide.)

Captured ex-president of Peru Alberto Fujimori faces criminal charges for the mass sterilization of 300,000 or more Indigenous women against their will.

Some estimates put the number of Native victims at 1million.

Fujimori recently arrived in Chile, after a 5 year exile in Japan. Chile arrested Fujimori, and is negotiating his extradition to Peru on a variety of charges.

Fujimori ordered the nation’s public health system to sterilize poor and especially Indigenous women, against their will. Women were typically violated in this way during childbirth, by doctors in the public health system.

The current president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo apologized through his Minister of Health, Fernando Carbone, for these violations of human rights.

On October 14, 2002, Peru’s government openly accepted responsibility for these acts before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

- CimacNoticias.com

Nov. 9, 2005

See also:

The crisis of forced sterilization.

July 26, 2002 - Peru's Government Apologizes for the Forced Sterilization of 200,000 Indigenous Women in the late 1990's.

Peru - Rape by Doctors in Family Planning Clinics

Book: Silence and Complicity

Indigenous and other poor women and girls in Peru face rape and other abuses from Peru's public health service doctors.

This investigative book reveals sexual and psychological violence against women who use public reproductive health and family planning services. The book was researched and written by the Center for Reproductive Law & Policy (CRLP) and the Lima branch of the and the Latin America and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights (CLADEM).

Peru - Rape by Doctors in Family Planning Clinics

Victory For Women In Peru

In a meeting with the Prime Minister, the Minister for the Promotion of Women, and the Minister of Health of Peru, lawyers from the Center for Reproductive Law & Policy (CRLP) and the Latin America and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights (CLADEM) obtained assurances from the government that the state would enact the changes as a result of a settlement in the case of Marina Machaca before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.

Marina Machaca, a 19-year old [indigenous] girl, was raped by Doctor Gerardo Salmón Horna, a doctor with the public hospital Carlos Monge Medrano in Juliaca, Peru...

Peru - Rape by Military Counter-Insurgency Forces

Peru, who's fight against the terrorism of the Shining Path guerrilla movement has led to extreme countermeasures (to be polite), was the subject of an Amnesty International report in August of 1992. Most of the combat has taken place in rural, almost purely Native (Inca) areas, where Spanish is a second language, and the Inca dialects of Quechua and Aymara are first languages. Over 8 million Peruvians, Bolivians, Ecuadorians, and Chileans speak Quechua as their first language. The Amnesty International report stated that a woman does not have the right to her own body in the war zone. Specifically, that the Peruvian government brings troops from the coastal areas of Peru, who have no cultural ties to the Inca peoples, and that these troops have the right to use Inca women in the war zone as they see fit [they rape them with impunity].

From Charles M. Goolsby, Jr.'s 1994 report:The Sexual and Economic Exploitation of Latina immigrant Women and Girls in Montgomery County, MD - Chapter 4.

Many Dead In Peruvian Civil War
By JUAN FORERO, NYTimes 29/8/03
Aug 29, 2003, 12:56

LIMA, Peru, Aug. 28 — A government-appointed truth commission said in a report issued today that more than 69,000 people were killed between 1980 and 2000, over twice the previous estimates of the death toll for the period of war and rebellion.

The report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that Maoist rebels, chiefly Shining Path, were responsible for more than half the deaths. But the commission also blamed three governments, two of them considered democratic, for widespread human rights abuses.

The commission said that three of every four people who died during the period were Quechua-speaking Indians, civilians who were caught between the military and guerrillas intent on toppling the government...

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