The Constitution guarantees freedom of expression, including for members of the press and other media, and the government has generally respected this right. An independent press and a functioning democratic political system generally encouraged freedom of expression, including for members of the media. The EU report describes the role of "most private media coverage" as "obviously biased in favor of Fujimori and against Castillo, without distinguishing between fact and opinion, undermining the right to truthful information." Ethics Tribunal for.
Freedom of assembly may be suspended in the areas of the VRAEM and La Pampa emergency zones, where. Movement within the country: The government maintained emergency zones including movement restrictions in VRAEM due to the presence of the Militarized Communist Party of Peru and in La Pampa due to illegal mining activities.
Freedom to Participate in the Political Process
Elections and Political Participation
Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government
The law provides criminal penalties for corruption by public officials; but the government did not always implement the law effectively. Citizens continued to view corruption as a pervasive problem in all branches of national, regional and local government. Companies also reported that mid-level officials distorted tender specifications to favor bidders who paid bribes.
The COVID-19 pandemic and emergency public procurement of medical supplies exacerbated the incidence of corruption. Observers said the creation in 2019 of the National Justice Commission, an independent body tasked with hiring and disciplining prosecutors and judges, was a step toward increasing transparency and accountability. The commission had removed more than 100 officials for corruption since September, including judges and prosecutors.
Governmental Posture Towards International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human
Discrimination and Societal Abuses
Women
The Department of Women and Vulnerable Populations reported more than 57,000 cases of violence against women between January and July, including 92 femicides and 79 attempted femicides; 46 percent of reported cases involved physical violence, 56 percent involved psychological violence, 46 percent involved physical violence, and 15 percent involved sexual violence. The Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations operated 449 service centers for victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse and other crimes, including sex trafficking and their accompanying children. NGO representatives expressed concern about the quality and quantity of program services, particularly in rural areas.
The law defines sexual harassment as comments, touching or acts of a sexual nature that the victim does not request or want. Access to menstrual health remained a problem, especially in rural and poor areas, due to lack of water and sanitation, high prices of menstrual hygiene products, and lack of information and awareness among teachers and employers. Civil society organizations reported that rural women, particularly Quechua-speaking women, were distrustful of health care providers who.
Sexual and reproductive health community organizations reported that health care personnel sometimes threatened to withhold birth certificates, and that rural Indigenous women experienced “verbal assault, beatings, the. The law requires public health centers to provide free access to emergency contraception, which was also available for a fee in commercial pharmacies. Despite this, the law only requires women to wait 300 days after widowhood or divorce to remarry.
The law stated that women should receive equal pay for equal work, but women were often paid less than men for the same jobs.
Indigenous Peoples
While the constitution recognizes that indigenous peoples have the right to own land communally, indigenous groups often lacked legal title to demarcate the boundaries of their land. Amazon's indigenous peoples continued to accuse the national government of delaying the issuance of land titles. By law, indigenous communities retain the right of non-assignment, which is designed to prevent the transfer of title to indigenous lands to a non-indigenous person.
However, some indigenous community members sold land to outsiders without the consent of the majority of their community. The law requires the government to consult with indigenous communities about proposed mining projects or about changes to current mining projects. The law also requires the government to draw up a detailed implementation plan to facilitate compliance by the government and the private sector.
The law requires the Ministry of Culture to establish a database of indigenous communities entitled to consultation. The ministry recognized 55 indigenous peoples entitled to "prior consultation" and confirmed the existence of another 14 indigenous "people in voluntary isolation" with very limited or no contact with the rest of the country, all of them in the Amazon rainforest. Quechua is the most widely spoken indigenous language, with 14 percent of citizens (4.4 million individuals) claiming it as their first language.
NGOs, legal experts and the Ombudsman expressed concern that indigenous communities are not adequately trained to consult effectively with government and extractive industries.
Children
Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law prohibits child pornography and carries a penalty of six to 12 years in prison and a fine. The law prohibits the trafficking of children for sexual purposes, with prescribed sentences of 12 to 20 years in prison if the victim is 14 to 17 years old, and a minimum of 25 years if the victim is 13 years old or younger. Government officials and non-governmental organizations uncovered numerous cases of child sex trafficking during the year, although officials continued to classify many child sex trafficking offenses as sexual exploitation, giving victims less protection.
While the COVID-19 pandemic brought most tourism to an end after its onset in 2020, the country remained a destination for child sex tourism, and NGO representatives reported an increase in online sexual exploitation of children during the pandemic. Although the country has strong laws to protect children, it has often had serious problems with enforcement. Media reported sex and labor trafficking of underage girls and women at the illegal gold mining sites in the remote Amazon's Madre de Dios region.
Law enforcement operations against illegal mining sites were not effective in identifying victims and removing them from exploitation. Rape of a child under 14 by an adult is punishable by life imprisonment. The law also prohibits adults from using deception, abuse of power, or taking advantage of a child in a vulnerable situation to have sex with a person younger than 18.
International child abduction: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
Anti-Semitism
Trafficking in Persons
Persons with Disabilities
Accessibility in public transportation and streets and highways varied widely by location, and while accessible infrastructure existed, it was not always reliable. Local government regulations and construction licenses require public spaces and buildings to be accessible to persons with disabilities. They also faced barriers in their access to education, inadequate job opportunities and job discrimination, according to government and civil society leaders.
The Office of the Ombudsman reported that approximately 87 percent of children with disabilities were not in school before the COVID-19 pandemic, and that 76 percent of people with disabilities were not working. A government survey reported that 70 percent of employers said they would not hire someone with a disability. Election authorities have taken measures for accessibility in the 2021 presidential and congressional elections, including providing accessible ballot boxes and offering voting materials in Braille, among others.
HIV and AIDS Social Stigma
Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Worker Rights
Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining With certain limitations, labor laws and regulations allow freedom to.
By law, at least 20 workers must join to form an enterprise-level union and 50 workers to form a sector-wide union or federation. Long-term employment under short-term contract schemes was widespread, including in the public sector. The use of unlimited consecutive short-term contracts made it difficult to exercise freedom of organization and collective bargaining.
Private sector employment law has nine categories of short-term employment contracts that companies can use. The law sets time limits for contracts in each category and has an overall limit of five years for the consecutive use of short-term contracts. A sector-specific law covering parts of the textile and clothing sector exempts employers from this five-year limit and allows employers to hire workers indefinitely on short-term contracts.
The law allows unions to declare strikes in accordance with their governing documents with five days' advance notice for the private sector, 10 days for the public sector and 15 days for emergency services. Essential services must also receive approval from the Department of Labor to strike and provide enough workers during a strike to maintain operations. NGOs specializing in labor confirmed that the government did not effectively enforce the law on freedom of association, collective bargaining or other labor laws.
Workers faced protracted legal processes and lack of enforcement following dismissals due to union activity.
The penalties were not commensurate with the penalties for other laws involving the denial of civil rights, such as discrimination. In July, the government adopted the National Policy against Trafficking in Human Beings, which replaced the previous plan for 2017-21. Prohibition of child labor and minimum age for employment The law prohibits all the worst forms of child labor.
The minimum legal age for the Act prohibits all the worst forms of child labour. The Ministry of Labor and the National Labor Inspectorate are responsible for enforcing child labor laws – in coordination with the police and prosecutors when crimes of forced child labor are involved – but enforcement was not effective, particularly in the informal sector where most of the work took place of children. Labor law enforcement agencies lacked inspectors and sufficient training to adequately combat child labor, and the government did not provide comprehensive information on work or enforcement efforts against the worst forms of child labor.
Discrimination in respect of employment and occupation The law prohibits employment discrimination on the grounds of race, skin color, sex, The law prohibits employment discrimination on the grounds of race, skin colour, sex. The law sets the following employment quotas for people with disabilities: 3 percent for private companies with more than 50 employees and 5 percent for public organizations. The law prohibits discrimination against domestic workers and prohibits any requirement by employers for their domestic workers to wear uniforms in public places.
The most recent report by the Office of the Ombudsman, issued in 2017, found that 28 percent of working-age women do not do paid work but do unpaid domestic work such as childcare, compared to 10 percent of working-age men.
