Living With Fear: Gender Violence in Peru

In the Peruvian society, it is not very common to hear about violence against the male gender, since there are more cases related to violence against women and there is a stereotype that associates men with self sufficiency, strength and insensitivity. We still cannot deny the fact that men suffer from different types of violence too. In 2018, in the country, 15% of the complaints made for domestic violence were made by men mistreated by their partner. Normally, men do not report these acts because they feel ashamed and/or are afraid that the authorities will not believe them. In the case of men; children, adolescents and older adults are the ones who suffer the most. The forms of abuse are physical, psychological, and sexual. Also, this affects the family environment and causes posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety atacks and even suicide.  With the city of Lima leading the rate of domestic violence against men with 1,111 cases so far this year, followed by Arequipa w...

According to the World Bank Organization, 70 countries around the world consider homosexuality illegal, and there is no social acceptance of this community at all. There are exclusions, arrests, and even the death penalty against them. This is alarming because there is a lot of discrimination and violence against people, based on their sexual orientation, and this affects them not only physically but psychologically. In Peru, most LGTB people live with the fear of being attacked, and they can't be themselves or show their real identities because we can see this rejection everywhere; in schools, universities, supermarkets, other social places, etc. Their sexual orientation affects them when getting a job and being with their families too. All the above-mentioned is called gender-based violence. But why does it occur in the first place? According to Mr. Vimal Makwana (2020), LGTB people face higher rates of hate-motivated violence, which take the form of stigma, marginalization, and ...

Violence against women is any action against them based on their gender. This can be physical, sexual, psychological abuse or even death, called femicide. It is devastating how many cases of this type of violence we have in Peru, where women live with fear every time they leave their homes, despite the fact that their own house is not a safe place sometimes.  National statistics give us a more realistic perspective of this situation. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics, in the first 10 months of 2021 around 117,414 cases of violence against women were handled, which represents an increase of more than 69% compared to the same period in the previous year. Ipsos says that sexual violence, sexual harassment and physical violence are the three main problems faced by women and child girls. In 2021, according to the National Program for the Prevention and Eradication of Violence against Women and Members of the Family Group (Aurora), psychological violence w...