Pérou
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Advocating for women’s sexual and reproductive rights in Peru, a risky fight against powerful enemies
CIVICUS speaks to María Ysabel Cedano, Director of DEMUS –Study for the Defense of Women’s Rights, a Peruvian feminist organisation that since 1987 defends human rights, and particularly women’s sexual and reproductive rights, by promoting their free exercise and questioning the hegemonic cultural paradigm on women and their sexuality. DEMUS carries out public opinion campaigns and advocacy work with the three branches of government; it conducts strategic litigation and promotes mobilisation on issues related to the promotion of equality and non-discrimination, a life free from gender-based violence, access to justice, and sexual and reproductive rights.
1. How would you describe the context for the exercise of feminist activism in Peru?
Generally speaking, conditions for activism greatly depend on the ideology, programme and nature of the organisation and movement in question - on its stance regarding the state and the incumbent government, and on its relationship with political forces and the powers that be.Due to our agenda, we feminists are antagonists of Fujimorism, the political movement founded by Alberto Fujimori, who ruled Peru between 1990 and 2000. Our organisation has criticised and opposed them since the 1990s, as we have fought for justice and reparations for the thousands of victims of the Fujimori administration’s policy of systematic forced sterilisation. Its victims were mostly peasant, indigenous and poor women who underwent irreversible surgical contraception without being able to give their free and informed consent, in a context of widespread violence.
On this issue, in 2003 we reached a Friendly Settlement Agreement (FSA) in the Mamérita Mestanza case. As a result, the Peruvian state acknowledged its responsibility for human rights violations in the context of the forced sterilisation policy and committed to providing justice and reparation to victims. We also obtained favourable statements by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that have boosted our work to defend the right to access justice and to promote a policy of integral reparations. That made us a target of Fujimorist attacks, in the form of defamation in the national media as well as in social media. We have in fact sued former congressman Alejandro Aguinaga, under investigation in the preliminary examination of forced sterilisations as a crime against humanity and other serious violations of human rights, which the Public Ministry opened in 2004 in compliance with the already mentioned FSA. The case still remains in its preliminary stages due to political interference, which we have publically denounced. For more than fourteen years, the Public Ministry has failed to accuse former President Fujimori and his former Health Ministers, including Aguinaga, and no prosecution has taken place. In the meantime, Fujimorism has not undergone any renovation whatsoever: it still does not believe in human rights and cannot fathom the right of women to decide on their own. In fact they all remain very convinced that it is the state that has to decide for them.
The other antagonists we have as a result of our feminist agenda are the Catholic and Evangelical ecclesial hierarchies, as well as other conservative and fundamentalist religious groups such as Opus Dei, Sodalitium and Bethel. These are the leaders of an anti- sexual and reproductive rights agenda and seek to legislate and implement public policies to strengthen the institutions that guarantee their political, economic, social and cultural dominance, thereby ignoring the secular character of the state that the authorities in turn fail to enforce. For decades they have run a strong campaign against what they call “gender ideology”, not just in Peru but throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, and beyond. These are multimillion-dollar campaigns that maintain that “gender ideology” attacks life, marriage and family. The funding they poured into the fear campaign against the peace accords in Colombia is a good example of this. They have also promoted a campaign called "Don't mess with my children" in several countries in the region.
While these actors have questioned the scientific and legal validity of the gender perspective, the concept of gender has been adopted in the Beijing Platform for Action (1995) and in standards such as CEDAW, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Convention of Belém do Pará. In Peru it was included into several laws, public policies and institutions, as a result of which conservative sectors are currently trying, for instance, to eliminate the gender perspective from the school curriculum, including all allusions to sexual orientation and gender identity. They have done so by means of both street actions and lawsuits. These however have not yielded the desired results: the overwhelming response from the Ministry of Justice’s Attorney General even covered them in ridicule. As a result, they had no alternative left other than using their power in Congress, where there are currently two bills that have been submitted by Fujimorism towards that aim.
Lastly, in addition to harassing us through their press, as they have always done, these sectors now also attack us for our funding sources. They say we are the instruments of great powers seeking to impose Western models of family and sexuality in our country.
Thanks to a journalistic investigation that then became a criminal investigation, we currently know of child sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the Sodalitium, one of the most conservative and powerful groups within the Catholic Church. The scandal contributed to weakening the attacks coming from the ecclesial hierarchy. We are also beginning to know about the unholy business the Church does with education, health and even cemeteries within the framework of the Concordat between the Peruvian state and the Vatican. The very same priests who have spent years fighting us on the decriminalisation of abortion for rape cases, and who have said the worst things about us because they consider themselves to be the “defenders of life”, have allegedly covered for rapists of children and adolescents in their congregations and communities. This has helped people overcome their fear of denouncing the Catholic Church’s hypocrisy and double standards, and has limited the church’s ability to demand the government implement specific policies. For instance, the government has recently obeyed a court order to resume the distribution of emergency oral contraception despite pressures from Cardinal Cipriani.
Given that our struggles for transitional justice have led us to seek justice and integral reparations for the victims of sexual violence during the internal armed conflict (1980-2000), we face not only Fujimorism but also APRA, a traditional party that ruled during a part of this period. They both seek to divide Peruvians between terrorists and non-terrorists and associate the left and human rights with terrorism. They never get tired of asserting that those who attack the military are terrorists - or ungrateful to say the least, for persecuting those who freed us from terrorism. If we strive for the legalisation of abortion we are abortionists, and if we defend human rights we are terrorists.
2. How does DEMUS work to overcome these obstacles?
We combine organisational and mobilisation strategies to strengthen the feminist and women’s diversity movement, public and political advocacy for legislation, public policies and access to justice measures, and strategic litigation. Among the latter were for instance the Manta y Vilca trial on rape during the internal armed conflict, which established that this was a crime against humanity; the case of forced sterilisations during the Fujimori administration; and other cases that have allowed us to move forward in terms of the recognition and guarantee of the human right to therapeutic abortion, among other sexual and reproductive rights.Ours is not just a lawyers’ struggle: we work in multidisciplinary teams and in alliances and within networks including other feminist, women’s, LGBTIQ and human rights NGOs, groups and platforms. Experience has taught us that it is not enough to obtain jurisprudence, standards, laws and public policies if there are no social movements and citizens defending them, that is, if there is no social base accompanying and empathising with the victims. Strategic litigation, legal defence and psycho-legal and therapeutic help are therefore always to be accompanied with mobilisation and campaigning.
3. Is the Peruvian women’s movement integrated into regional or global networks, so as to face an adversary that is?
There are indeed very important global and regional networks. In Latin America, the level of articulation reached by indigenous, peasant and environmental women human rights defenders is astonishing in contrast with the weakening of some feminist networks. New technologies have revolutionised communications, and we now have various alternative means to organise ourselves in networks.We must think about how to strengthen our thematic networks, for instance in the field of sexual and reproductive rights, in order to resist together. This is facilitated by a number of conceptual convergences, but complicated by the scarcity of resources reaching Latin America, competition around which affects alliances and articulations. Neoliberalism has also had an impact on inter-subjective relations: conflicts and rivalries arise due to scarce funding. It is impossible to understand the degree of difficulties we face without analysing the changes in and the new rules of international cooperation and funding mechanisms.
On the other hand, we must not forget that Peru’s is a post-conflict society, with open wounds and an abundance of distrust, which has not yet learned to resolve differences without violence. We need to be aware of these limitations, so as not to reproduce what we criticise. But we are certainly still very strong: with much greater organisation and resources than we have, Catholics and evangelicals have not yet managed to create enough pressure in the streets and on public opinion to remove sex education from the school curriculum. Their only hope is now placed on authoritarian conservative forces in Congress.4. What progress or setbacks do you perceive in the struggle for women’s rights in Peru?
Taking stock of the forty years of contemporary feminism in Peru, there has been net progress in terms of the legal-institutional framework. Advances have been the result of constant struggle and permanent dispute, and are neither ideal nor stable: they need to be continuously defended and perfected.For instance, in late 2015 a substantial amendment to Law No. 26260 (1993) on domestic violence was finally passed. The new legislation, Law No. 30394, is a law against gender-based violence. Shortly after, in July 2016, the Third National Plan against Gender Violence (2016-2021) was passed. In both cases there was a dispute over the diversity of the women to be protected. There was much resistance against the possibility that legislation would also protect lesbian, bisexual and transgender women. In fact, recognition of the variety of forms that gender violence can take was not as resisted as the extension and recognition of the objects of protection. The women’s movement succeeded in getting some previously unacknowledged forms of gender violence recognised as such, including gender-based violence in the context of social conflicts. We wanted the new law to protect women human rights defenders of land, the environment, and natural resources, that is, indigenous and peasant women who are currently criminalised and on whom conflicts have a differential impact on the basis of gender. This we achieved. We had also proposed that the violation of sexual and reproductive rights be recognised as gender violence. And while we achieved recognition of forced sterilisation, rape in the context of internal armed conflict, violence due to sexual orientation, and obstetric violence as forms of gender-based violence, such recognition was not expressed in the language of sexual and reproductive rights. In additional, sexual orientation-based violence was recognised but gender identity-based violence was not.
Fifteen years after the First National Plan was launched, and more than twenty after the first law against then-called “domestic” or “intra-family” violence was passed, tension between women’s rights and family protection persists. Although Law No. 30364 has in many respects aligned legislation with the Belém do Pará Convention, violence based on gender identity discrimination has not yet been recognised. Public debate continues to focus on nature as a determinant of sexuality, reproduction and family.
Why is it that feminists and LGBT people perceive “family protection” as contrary to our rights? First, because not all families are protected. Family rights of the LGBT population are not recognised. Secondly, because why protect the existing family – a traditional, hierarchical, violent family based on sexual division of labour and the exclusive recognition of heterosexual sexuality? A family organisation free of discrimination and gender-based violence should be promoted instead. In other words, measures should be taken to dismantle the patriarchal family, which functions as the very first place of normalisation and control, particularly for women and LGBT persons. The family has become a space in which physical, psychological and sexual violence remain unpunished: in fact, Peru has the second highest rate of denunciation of sexual offences against girls and adolescents in the region, and these are in many cases perpetrated by family members. Finally, a person’s (and in this case a woman’s) rights can never be subordinated, conditioned or reduced to a by-product of family welfare, in the same way as the rights of an actual person cannot be subordinated to the rights of being yet to be born.
In sum, in historical perspective there has been progress in the recognition and guarantee of rights, but these have been the product of constant struggle. We face strong resistance, and if we had not permanently defended our conquests, we would certainly have seen them retreat long ago.
5. In this context, how has DEMUS’ agenda changed since its beginnings in 1987?
DEMUS is an organisation well known for its work for the right to a life free of gender-based violence. We specialise in prevention, care, denunciation, therapeutic and psycho-legal accompaniment, litigation, advocacy with legislative, policymaking and justice administration bodies, and campaigning and mobilisation on gender-based violence. For instance, we developed the “Not one more death” campaign, which placed femicide on the public agenda, and the “A man doesn't rape” campaign, which contributed to call attention on the problem of sexual violence, impunity and the culture of rape.
In the beginning we had to dispute about the very concept of what was then called “intra-family violence”, which we designated as “violence against women” and today we call “gender-based violence”. We saw violence against women as a problem of power inequality, sexual discrimination and impunity, so we advocated for equality and access to justice. However, as years passed and the first laws and policies on the issue were passed, we realised that we were not obtaining the results we expected.The fight against violence against women had gained consensus as part of the state agenda and had occupied a space in the institutional structure of the state (commissions, ministries, etc.), and even ultraconservatives had begun to accept equal opportunities between men and women (which was enshrined in Law No. 28983 of 2007) all the while resisting the recognition of other sexual orientations and gender identities. So we began a conceptual revision and concluded that if we wanted to combat gender-based violence, our central strategic battle had to revolve around women’s autonomy and self-determination in the field of sexuality and reproduction, the recognition of and the provision of guarantees for sexual and reproductive rights understood as fundamental human rights, and access to justice in cases where these were violated. The perspective of sexual and reproductive rights came to enrich the equality and non-discrimination approach in addressing the problems of gender-based violence and impunity.
Thus, although the defence of LGBT rights and the legalisation of abortion were already in DEMUS’ agenda, they have since become more central to it. And our strategies became richer in the process, because besides strategic litigation and therapeutic and psycho-legal accompaniment we started to focus as well on organisation and mobilisation, public advocacy and communication. We have used the whole toolbox in our search for justice and reparations for the victims of forced sterilisations, and also in our campaigns for emergency oral contraception and the legalisation of abortion (first of all for reasons of rape, foetal malformations incompatible with extra-uterine life, and unconsented artificial insemination and egg transfers, and eventually on the basis of women’s dignity and right to decide).
Most recently, in our work to defend victims of sexual violence and impunity, we have learned from the indigenous and peasant women defenders of land and water that women human rights defenders are being differently affected by the extractivist economy due to their gender, and are being specifically criminalised by corporations such as the Yanacocha mining company and by the state itself. In their struggle to defend lakes and resist mining projects such as Conga, women are having a hard time, since gender-based violence is being used against them. In the actions of the police and the Armed Forces we are currently seeing a criminalisation of social protest, threats and violations of women’s rights echoing those that took place during armed conflict. In order to avoid the repetition of serious violations of human rights and crimes against humanity, we are using the new legislation, which now enables it, to denounce Yanacocha and make it clear that there is gender-based violence behind situations of harassment like that suffered by women human rights defenders such as Máxima Acuña.
The other agenda that we increasingly adopted as central is the defence against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, in order to achieve recognition of and guarantees for the right to gender identity and lesbians’ right to maternity. We choose the issues we fight for on the basis of several criteria. One of them is that of revolutionising whatever the system resists the most, so that if we win, we will not only have obtained a law, public policy or jurisprudence, but we will also have conquered people’s common sense. And what the system most resists today is transgender identity and the right of LGBT persons to love and family. The system condemns us to civil death, poverty, marginalisation, murder, harassment and rape.6. In Peru, there have recently been major mobilisations with the motto #NiUnaMenos. How was the issue placed on the public agenda in such a way that mobilisation turned out to be so massive? What roles did regional networks play in the process?
The marches in Argentina, Mexico and other countries inspired many of us: we wanted to do something similarly massive in our own country. But mobilisation did not occur in Peru as a response to a regional call, or as a result of prior coordination within a regional network.
A year prior to this mobilisation there was a high profile case in Peru, in which a woman was savagely attacked in a hotel in Ayacucho, dragged by the hair and almost raped and murdered. The episode had been recorded on video, and everyone followed the case in the media and expected the attacker to be convicted. The ruling came out a few months before the demonstration, and it acquitted the accused. It denied that an attempted rape and femicide had taken place, and it even ruled that the injuries on the victim had been minor. This generated a social phenomenon of indignation that spread throughout the national territory and in social media. Women who were in the ideological and social antipodes from one another agreed that something had to be done, and feminists started talking about a mobilisation meant to make it clear that “if they touch one of us, they are touching us all”. The #NiUnaMenos (#NotOneLess) slogan was adopted out of the belief that the time had finally come and that this would be a mobilisation of a magnitude similar to those that had taken place in other countries.
In Peru, the idea persists that if you do not obtain justice it is because you cannot prove what has happened to you. You only have your word and that is not enough for justice administrators. Now, if even in a case where there is a video like that, the aggressor is eventually absolved, what kind of security and justice is left for the rest of us? This created an unprecedented feeling of helplessness. Fear quickly turned into indignation, and this in turn into mobilisation. I was invited to join a Facebook chat a few hours after the video was made public. There were ten of us to start with, and a little while later we were over sixty, and the next day we were meeting at a comrade’s place. Within a few hours, the closed group formed in Facebook went from a few women testifying to the various forms of violence in their daily lives to 20 thousand, 40 thousand women reporting on their own stories of violence: at home, in the streets, at work, in school. Terrible stories, and everybody was telling them and keeping each other company.Thus, in Peru citizens went out into the streets to reject impunity and defend the right to justice. People began to wonder why violence against women persists despite all the laws and policies to combat it. The media started talking about patriarchy and machismo as its causes. There was some recognition of the importance of the feminist struggle, at least in that particular context. Much of the leadership and organisational work towards mobilisation was done by various organised and unorganised female citizens, leaders of feminist groups in neighbourhoods, universities, trade unions, NGOs. Women of a wide diversity of movements, colours, desires, education, professions and talents, in alliance and dialogue with the survivors whose emblematic cases united diverse sectors of society. Conservative sectors have still not managed to obtain similar success in defence of their agenda.
7. Did the mobilisation have any positive effect in terms of public policy?
The mobilisation resulted in some concrete measures, although these were too narrowly focused and involved little public investment. A Circle of Protection program was created, thereby extending attention to 24/7 in five out of over 200 Emergency Women’s Centres (EWC). Coverage of the emergency line Línea 600 was extended to all days of the week. This contributed to an increase in addressed complaints. Also, cases of femicide and rape were subsequently included into the rewards programme to stop offenders.Additionally, there were announcements regarding the expansion of temporary shelters, the provision of gender training to justice operators, and in particular to the National Police, and the creation of at least 50 new EWCs in various police stations across the country. The Public Ministry adapted its guidelines to Law No. 30364 and announced the creation of prosecution offices specialised in femicide. The Judiciary established a National Gender Commission.
Nonetheless, femicidal violence persists as a savage daily occurrence; there is in fact a patriarchal and male chauvinist counteroffensive underway. They continue to kill us and rape us, and the femicide and rape culture keeps blaming us for it. And the measures adopted by the state in defence of the gender approach and gender equality fall short: they are basically reactions and responses to public pressure. We women do the reporting and monitoring job that the state should be doing. The state and the government always give in when it comes to the sexual and reproductive rights of women and LGBTIQ people. Which makes it clear that unless it becomes feminist, public policy will yield no results. If public policy priorities do not change, women will continue to die.
The most important changes have occurred in the realms of common sense. #NiUnaMenos has shown that there is widespread rejection of violence against women, and that women have become empowered to talk about sexual violence in the same way that we first learned to talk about partner and domestic violence. There is no longer shame in having been a victim: it is clear that the other party is the one at fault. Women now know that there are things that are not right, and that if they happen to them it is not their fault, or God’s will, or the work of nature: it is a violation of rights and a matter of justice, and those responsible have to be punished.Civic space in Peru is rated as ‘obstructed’ in the CIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with DEMUS through their website, visit their Facebook page, or follow @DEMUS_f and @MYCfeminista on Twitter.Image ©Peru21
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PÉROU : « Le débat constitutionnel a pris une nouvelle importance depuis les manifestations »
CIVICUS parle des récentes manifestations au Pérou avec Rafael Barrio de Mendoza, chercheur sur les processus de transformation territoriale du Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana, un consortium de dix organisations de la société civile présentes dans 16 régions du Pérou. Propuesta Ciudadana cherche à contribuer à la formulation de propositions politiques pour un État inclusif et la gestion adéquate des ressources publiques. L´organisation promeut une vision de la gouvernance territoriale qui commence par l'identification et le respect des diversités et se concentre sur le développement démocratique.Quel a été le déclencheur des protestations qui ont éclaté au Pérou en novembre 2020 ?
La cause immédiate a été la décision d'une majorité parlementaire de destituer le président Martín Vizcarra, en utilisant un mécanisme rarement utilisé dans le passé et dont le contenu et le processus disposent d'une large marge d'appréciation. La publication des accusations contre Vizcarra s'est déroulée selon une séquence qui s’est révélée planifiée, et la sensation de son instrumentalisation par la soi-disant « coalition d'expulsion » a prédominé. Si la qualité des preuves des crimes qui auraient été commis contre Vizcarra pendant son mandat de gouverneur de la région de Moquegua il y a cinq ans suscite une certaine controverse, l'opinion publique s'accorde à dire que ces allégations auraient pu être poursuivies de manière crédible à la fin de son mandat présidentiel, d'autant plus que des élections générales étaient déjà prévues pour avril 2021.
Mais d'un point de vue plus structurel, la crise politique a été l'expression de la maturation d'une crise de la représentation politique, avec peu de liens organiques entre l'offre politique et les sensibilités citoyennes et un système de représentation politique précaire et cartellisé, dans lequel maintes intérêts illégaux, informels et oligopolistiques ont résisté aux générations successives de réformes - éducatives, judiciaires, fiscales et politiques, entre autres - qui cherchent à les réguler. Les révélations d'affaires de corruption impliquant une grande partie de l'establishment politique, comme l'affaire Lava Jato/Odebrecht et l'affaire des Cols blancs, qui ont mis au jour un vaste réseau de corruption dans le système judiciaire, ont servi à installer le consensus d'une détérioration générale de la gestion du public. Au même temps, l'efficacité relative des mesures fiscales à l'encontre des dirigeants politiques impliqués a nourri la perspective d'un nettoyage de la classe politique et la possibilité de cultiver une transition vers un meilleur système de représentation. Dans une certaine mesure, le lien populiste établi par Vizcarra avec cette sensibilité - scellé avec la dissolution constitutionnelle du précédent Congrès, dans lequel le parti de l'ancien président Alberto Fujimori était majoritaire - a été le facteur qui a soutenu son gouvernement, manquant de soutien parlementaire, commercial, médiatique ou syndical. La vacance de Vizcarra a été vécue comme la restitution de la constellation d'intérêts qui jusqu'alors avait régressé avec le travail fiscal et les réformes éducatives, politiques et judiciaires.
Comment décririez-vous le conflit institutionnel qui a conduit à la destitution et au remplacement du président ?
Le conflit institutionnel est né de la précarité d'un système politique caractérisé par un nouveau Congrès avec de multiples bancs mais aucun officiel et un président populaire mais sans soutien institutionnel, dont la légitimité a été soutenue dans la gestion polyvalente du débat public par une combinaison de gestes politiques, le recrutement de techniciens compétents à des postes clés et un exercice calculé d'antagonisme avec le Congrès sur des questions clés telles que les réformes éducatives, politiques et judiciaires.
La coalition majoritaire au Congrès a largement repris l'agenda des intérêts de la précédente majorité « Fujiapriste » - ainsi désignée par l'alliance tacite entre le parti Aprista et le courant politique fondé par l'ancien président Fujimori - à laquelle elle a ajouté de nouvelles revendications populistes qui mettent en péril la gestion budgétaire et macroéconomique autour de laquelle il y avait un consensus technocratique. Dans ce cadre, les acteurs qui ont survécu à la dissolution du précédent Congrès ont réussi à se réinstaller dans le nouveau et à mener, avec certains médias, une campagne qui visait à détériorer la popularité de Biscaye en lançant des accusations de corruption dans des affaires peu claires. Telles sont les dynamiques qui ont nourri le conflit institutionnel.
Pour sa part, la société civile a eu une réponse unifiée à la vacance de poste et au nouveau régime qui a été mis en place. Leur réponse allait de l'expression d'inquiétudes et de l'exigence de responsabilité à la condamnation ouverte de la mise en place de la nouvelle administration. Les manifestations et la répression massives auxquelles ils ont été confrontés ont alimenté cette transition dans une grande partie de la société civile. De nombreuses organisations de la société civile ont joué un rôle actif dans l'encadrement du conflit, la production d'un récit destiné à un public international et la pression exercée sur les acteurs publics avec lesquels elles interagissent.
Qui s'est mobilisé, et qu'ont-ils réclamé ?
Au début, les manifestants contestaient la vacance du poste de président Vizcarra et la prise de fonction du président du Congrès, Manuel Merino, comme nouveau président. Un sondage ultérieur réalisé par Ipsos a montré qu'un peu plus des trois quarts de la population était d'accord avec la manifestation contre la destitution du président Vizcarra, et qu'au moins deux millions de personnes se sont mobilisées d'une manière ou d'une autre ou ont pris une part active aux manifestations.
Les manifestations ont été principalement menées par des jeunes de 16 à 30 ans, qui ont constitué l'épine dorsale de l'organisation et ont généré les répertoires et les tactiques de manifestation. Le sentiment général de lassitude a été mobilisé par la génération dite « du bicentenaire », née après la fin du fujimorisme, originaire du numérique et, pour la plupart, mécontente de la politique conventionnelle. C'est aussi une génération mésocratique - tant dans les segments traditionnels de la classe moyenne que dans les secteurs populaires – qui participe à des communautés virtuelles médiatisées par des plateformes numériques. Cela explique en partie la rapidité avec laquelle apparaissent des architectures organisationnelles suffisamment efficaces pour produire des répertoires, coordonner des actions, documenter des manifestations et générer des mouvements d'opinion publique. La médiation des réseaux sociaux et l'utilisation des applications de microtransferts monétaires ont favorisé une organisation décentralisée de la contestation, avec de multiples manifestations dans différents lieux, des appels convergents différents, une diversité de répertoires et des canaux pour le transfert rapide de ressources.
La mobilisation menée par les jeunes a été alimentée par une classe moyenne prête à assumer le coût de la manifestation. Autour de ce noyau, d'autres secteurs de la population, plus ou moins habitués aux stratégies de manifestation conventionnelles, ou simplement éloignés de toute expression publique, se sont articulés sociologiquement et territorialement.
Les manifestations ont commencé le 9 novembre, se sont succédées de jour en jour et ont atteint leur apogée le 14 novembre, date de la deuxième marche nationale. La mobilisation massive de ce qu'on appelle le 14N a été alimentée par l'expression soudaine d'un sentiment de ras-le-bol qui a traversé la société et a été particulièrement intense chez les jeunes. D'où son caractère exceptionnel dû à son ampleur, sa portée et son organisation, ainsi qu'à la mise en place rapide d'une identité citoyenne non partisane, qui ne s'explique que partiellement par le soutien apporté à Vizcarra, puisqu'elle l'a dépassé.
Le 14N a culminé avec la mort de deux jeunes manifestants sous une grenaille de plomb. Merino avait pris le pouvoir le 10 novembre et avait formé un gouvernement radicalement conservateur. Le vrai visage de son cabinet a été rapidement révélé dans l'autorisation de la répression sévère de la manifestation, surtout à Lima, la capitale. Après les premiers jours de violence policière, le président du Conseil des ministres a félicité les brigades de police impliquées et leur a garanti une protection. La mort du 14N a déclenché une cascade de désaffection chez les quelques partisans politiques qui ont soutenu le régime en réponse à la pression écrasante des citoyens, et à midi le 15 novembre, Merino avait démissionné.
L'espace généré par la mobilisation a été peuplé d'un certain nombre de revendications hétérogènes, allant du rétablissement de Biscarrosse à la demande d'un changement constitutionnel qui cimenterait la sortie du néolibéralisme, en passant par des propositions plus clairement citoyennes axées sur la défense de la démocratie, la continuité des réformes, l'injustice de la répression et l'insensibilité de la classe politique à l'urgence sanitaire de la pandémie. Ces revendications demeurent ferventes, et il reste à voir comment elles finiront par prendre forme dans le scénario électoral de 2021.
En quoi ces manifestations diffèrent-elles des autres qui ont eu lieu dans le passé ? Y a-t-il eu des changements liés au contexte de la pandémie ?
Les mécanismes de coordination fournis par les réseaux sociaux avaient déjà été testés lors de précédentes mobilisations urbaines, mais ces manifestations avaient été menées par des acteurs conventionnels, tels que des mouvements sociaux, des partis politiques et des syndicats. À cette occasion, de nouveaux groupes d'activistes ont été formés, tels que les brigades de gaz lacrymogènes et de secours médical, à l'instar des techniques de mobilisation testées dans d'autres contextes, comme les manifestations de Hong Kong et les manifestations du Black Lives Matter aux États-Unis. Cela témoigne de l'émergence d'espaces d'apprentissage de la manifestation au niveau mondial.
C'est en partie l'urgence sanitaire qui a conditionné la composition des manifestations, majoritairement composées de jeunes, tout en favorisant, chez les plus réticents à sortir à la rue, la diffusion de nouveaux répertoires, tels que les « cacerolazos » (casserolades), « bocinazos » (klaxons) et l'activisme numérique. En même temps, la nature massive des protestations peut s'expliquer par le fait que les indicateurs de santé de l'époque suggéraient l'arrêt de la première vague de COVID-19, et par le fait que les manifestations de Black Lives Matter n'avaient été liées à aucun cluster épidémique constatable, ce qui a encouragé un sentiment de sécurité pour les marches.
Pourquoi les manifestants ont-ils fini par exiger une réforme constitutionnelle ? Quel type de réforme constitutionnelle demandent-ils ?
Les propositions de modifications constitutionnelles faisaient partie des revendications de la mobilisation, mais elles n'ont pas fini par en être les principaux protagonistes. En tout état de cause, ils ont pris un nouvel élan dans le débat public. La généalogie de ces demandes peut être pensée de deux manières. Le changement constitutionnel par le biais d'une assemblée constituante est l'une des principales revendications de la gauche depuis la fin du fujimorisme. Immédiatement après la chute du régime de Fujimori (1990-2001), un Congrès a été convoqué avec un mandat constitutif incapable de produire un nouveau texte constitutionnel, et depuis lors, cette aspiration a fini par habiter le champ du progressisme, perdant du terrain parmi les autres acteurs centristes et de droite. La gauche revendique souvent la mythique Constitution de 1979 comme une alternative, propose un nouveau texte inspiré des processus bolivien et équatorien, et pointe le caractère illégitime de la Constitution actuelle, née après un coup d'État. La croissance économique soutenue des décennies post-Fujimori et les réformes spécifiques de certains mécanismes constitutionnels ont donné une légitimité à la Constitution, mais nombre des institutions et des principes qu'elle consacre ont été épuisés par les changements sociologiques et économiques qu'ils ont contribué à provoquer.
Le deuxième aspect provient d'une demande plus organique suite à la prise de conscience des limites du modèle de marché, évidente surtout dans la persistance de l'absence de protection sociale, du travail précaire et informel et des abus des oligopoles dans la prestation de services, ainsi que dans la crise du système de représentation politique. Vizcarra a inauguré une étape réformiste dans les domaines judiciaire et politique, ainsi que dans les cadres juridiques régissant les secteurs extractifs et le système de retraite. Elle a également donné une continuité à la réforme de l'éducation. L'esprit réformiste - considéré par les secteurs modérés comme la voie d'une transition « responsable » - a été attaqué par la lutte politique alimentée par les secteurs concernés, créant un espace pour que les aspirations à la réforme commencent à être prêchées dans le langage du changement constitutionnel.
Cependant, ce débat a pris une nouvelle importance depuis les protestations du 14 novembre, et les termes de la conversation, le contenu des changements les plus significatifs et, surtout, l'offre d'acteurs politiques mûrs capables de les interpréter et de les mettre en œuvre, ne sont toujours pas clairs. Le danger réside dans le fait que, dans un contexte de forte indétermination, le processus finit par être défini par des acteurs dont les motivations ne participent pas à l'esprit du changement.
L'espace civique au Pérou est décrit comme « obstrué » par leCIVICUS Monitor.
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PERU: ‘The ultra-conservative tide is affecting democratic life and fundamental rights’
As part of our 2019 thematic report, we are interviewing civil society activists and leaders about their experiences of backlash from anti-rights groups and their strategies to strengthen progressive narratives and civil society responses. CIVICUS speaks toEliana Cano, founder of Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir – Peru (Catholics for the Right to Decide – CDD-Peru), a Catholic and feminist movement committed to the pursuit of social justice and the change of cultural patterns that limit women's autonomy and their sexual and reproductive rights. CCD-Peru has recently been sued by the Tomás Moro Legal Centre, which wants to strip it of its legal status on the basis that, within the framework of an agreement between the Vatican State and Peru, it should not be using the term ‘Catholics’.CDD-Peru is being sued to have its legal personality withdrawn and prevented from calling itself 'Catholic'. Who is suing you, what do they have against you, and what are they trying to achieve?
About a month and a half ago we were notified that the Santo Tomás Moro Legal Centre, which is a self-appointed representative of the Catholic Church, had brought a lawsuit against us. According to the lawyers who are advising us, this group began to look into the work done by our organisation about a year ago. They decided to sue us in the civil courts because they want to make this a long, tedious, tiring process, one of permanent appeal. The whole thing can take up to three or four years. Basically, their strategy is to drain us of energy in the process.
They want us to cease to exist as a registered organisation, recognised by the National Superintendency of Public Registries. In other words, they want us to lose our legal status and not be able to continue operating in Peru. They argue that, by calling ourselves what we do, we are disrespecting the Catholic Church and its parishioners. They say that, in light of the existing agreement between the Vatican State and Peru – which recognises the role of the Catholic Church – we are using the term 'Catholic', which represents an institution and a historical identity, in bad faith. They do not accept the interpretation we make of biblical texts on the basis of feminist theology in order to question dogma, imposed conscience and control of people in the name of God. It is important to note that our organisation is not registered with the Catholic Church as a faith group, and therefore is not subject to the internal mandate of the Church.
You have been around for a few years. Is this the first time you have faced such reaction?
Indeed, the project of Catholics for the Right to Decide is quite old in Latin America. It began in Uruguay and then spread to the USA, and from there it passed on to Mexico and other countries of Latin America. In Peru the organisation has had a legal existence since 2009. We organised ourselves because we identify as feminists with a Catholic identity. We see ourselves as Catholic women of faith, but we have a critical view of dogma, of static and closed thought, especially where issues related to sexual and reproductive rights are concerned, as body and sexuality are a terrain where political battles are fought. In Peru there has always been a very homogenous public voice around the Gospels and the right to command over the bodies and lives of women, and we, by questioning this from the position of our Catholic identity, have received a rather aggressive response by the hierarchy of the local Catholic Church and groups linked to it.
The first public attack happened on the occasion of the debate around the definition of a protocol for therapeutic abortion: abortion that is justified for medical reasons, when there are serious risks to the woman’s health or life. It was an attack tinged with the same resources these groups always use, based on defamation, vilification and lies. But in this case attacks basically took the form of verbal and written attacks on social media.
Conservative groups know how to manage social media and constantly attack us publicly for everything we do that deviates from dogma or homogeneous discourse. However, this is the first time we have faced a lawsuit, and we were not expecting an attack so direct and of such magnitude. Maybe we should have foreseen it, since in Latin America, and in Peru specifically, ultra-conservative groups have penetrated deeply into the political structure of the country and are affecting democratic life.
It would seem that these ultra-conservative groups are now larger and more emboldened than they used to be. Why is that?
When looking back you realise that for several decades a global and regional response has developed to discourage and weaken the liberation theology discourse, which put the emphasis mostly on poverty. With a questioning discourse within the Church that extended to other areas of life, liberation theology made the most hardcore conservative elements of the Church very uncomfortable. The reaction against it has been sustained. It has made a lot of progress, to the point that today a highly organic network has become visible, which has bases in various Latin American countries and its own publications, conferences and considerable economic resources. Its presence began to make itself felt strongly in 2005, when the Center for Family Promotion and Regulation of Birth (Ceprofarena) organised the Second International Pro-Life Congress in the capital, Lima. This congress produced a document known as the Lima Declaration, an expression of the agreement reached by conservative groups.
Ceprofarena has existed since the early eighties. It maintains close links to Human Life International, a powerful international conservative organisation, and among its members are renowned physicians and senior state officials, including former health ministers. The organisation acts within numerous medical and health organisations, both public and private. These actors put conservative ‘scientific’ discourse at the service of abuses such as the denial of emergency oral contraception, an issue on which they successfully took on the Ministry of Health. They sued the Ministry, bringing to court the right to information and choice of thousands of women, and succeeded in achieving the prohibition of the distribution of emergency contraception by all health services nationwide. Now they are campaigning to dismantle the therapeutic abortion protocol established during the 2011 to2016 period.
The network of conservative organisations in Peru also includes the Office for Latin America of the Population Research Institute, based in Lima; the Peruvian headquarters of the Latin American Alliance for the Family, which promotes classic family formats and produces and disseminates school books; of course older organisations such as Opus Dei, which does local development and support work and is deeply embedded in educational spaces, as well as within the bureaucracy of the Church; and the Sodalicio de la Vida Cristiana, an organisation of lay people.
These groups have a lot of money that comes from the conservative business sector and have appropriated effective strategies and discourses. This lawsuit is a practical strategy that denotes a change in their way of organising. They no longer speak the language of the divine and the clerical because they know that it attracts fewer and fewer people; instead they have appropriated the discourse of democracy and human rights.
Are you thinking of new strategies to face this growing challenge?
In the present scenario we view ourselves as in need of strengthening our communication strategies. We also need to strengthen our resourcing, since we do not have funds to face a lawsuit of this magnitude. International funders do not necessarily provide support that can be used to develop institutional defence plans. But at present, this is a profound need of human rights organisations. In our case, fortunately the Legal Defence Institute, which had already taken on similar cases affecting journalists, became interested and decided to sponsor the case as part of its institutional priorities. They consider that this is an "ideological fight" and that questioning our name is a "pretext" to make us disappear as influential actors. Theirs has been a gesture that we are infinitely thankful for.
As far as discourse is concerned, however, we should not move from our positions, but rather show that the appropriation of the discourse of human rights and democracy by ultra-conservative groups is as superficial as disrespectful of democratic principles. As happened recently with the ‘Do not mess with my children’ campaign – against education about gender equality and respect for sexual identities – their discourse tends to become very aggressive every time they feel cornered. They seem to be desperate, because deep down they do nothing but react in the face of newly acquired rights.
And the situation has indeed progressed, because this is not just us – new generations are mobilised and lots of people who are respectful of freedom and diversity and who uphold guarantees for rights are gaining ground. It is not just three or four old-time feminist organisations that are active in Lima; there are also the voices and faces of young people organised in universities, people in communities in various regions of Peru who think critically, do not accept dogmas, even react in a sarcastic tone to that type of discourse and perspective.
Of course there is always a Catholic youth following that responds to the Pope and has decided to stay within the ultra-conservative field, but there is also youth social mobilisation around many issues, and with their help many aspects of the sexual and reproductive rights agenda are permeating the public debate. I think this is causing ultra-conservative groups to despair, and that is why they are reacting with such anger, frustration and, I would even dare say, hate. That is, they react with attitudes that are nowhere close to mercy, kindness, humility, understanding and non-judgement.
Why does the fact that you define yourselves as both Catholics and feminists cause this type of reaction?
We are women of faith and religion is part of our identity. We have been raised Catholic, and in that context the message that was instilled in us was one of obedience, prohibition and oppression. As we grew up, we rebelled against this and other aspects related to the control of our lives and their sexual dimension. We identify ourselves as Catholic on the basis of a renewed interpretation, but we do not renounce our faith. We are aware that Catholicism is not only a matter of faith, but it also operates within or materialises in an institution, and as such it includes both positive and negative practices that have an impact on the lives of many people, and specifically on its members.
At the same time, we all come from organisations with a feminist identity. We are feminists and we question patriarchy as a system of asymmetric power relations, but we do not renounce our faith. We always ask ourselves these questions: why should our religion have to have one single voice, uniform and unquestionable? Why obey in silence and validate sacrifice and suffering in our own lives and bodies? We find a foothold in feminist theology, which offers a deconstruction and reconstruction of the Gospel. These conceptual and political tools strengthen our conviction and our public struggle for sexual and reproductive rights.
High Church officials tell us: ‘you are not Catholic, who are you to speak in the name of Catholicism?’ We respond: ‘what makes you a Catholic, what allows you to trample rights in the name of God?’ We have claimed ownership of the language of the Gospel that focuses on the right of people to deliberate in conscience, to discern and to decide, and this bothers them. I am a Catholic, I was baptised and I am guided by feminist theology. You cannot question my faith, just as I cannot question yours. This is a very hard fight, because it is easy to fall in the face of a mass telling you that you are not one of them. From the beginning we knew that we would face disqualification, defamation and lies; we did not, however, think that the attacks would become as violent as those we are currently experiencing on social media, as well as in the form of a lawsuit.
Given that the experience of faith cannot be taken away from us, what they are trying to do is take away our legal status, make us disappear. We represent a danger because we are not just a few. In fact, more and more people are increasingly getting to know us and identify with us. We represent the position of many people who do not necessarily have the opportunity to articulate this strand of thought publicly, but who feel it and live by it. There is a wide and diverse congregation that does not think the same way as the Church hierarchy and considers that the ultra-conservative response to public policy is more suitable to Inquisition times than today. According to polls, most Catholics disagree with the Church hierarchy on many important issues, such as homosexuality, which they do not consider to be an illness or a divine punishment, or same-sex marriage. Choosing an abortion in specific life circumstances is a highly ethical and responsible decision, and it does not make you a bad woman, a lesser Catholic, or a bad mother. Using contraceptives to regulate motherhood and fatherhood or enjoying a sexual relationship without procreating is not prohibited by the Gospels. The state of virginity is losing its divine quality and this is freeing women from feelings of guilt, even in societies such as Latin America’s, where governments and the Catholic Church have always worked in concert to regulate people’s lives. Still today they support one another every time one of them loses credibility.
How else are you trying to encourage a distinction between private faith and public policy?
Ours is also a struggle for a secular state, a state that is separated from all churches. This is very difficult to achieve in practice, since the Catholic Church and the Peruvian state maintain strong institutional ties. However, short of achieving constitutional and legal separation between Church and state, there is another fight to be had in the sphere of collective attitudes. Many people – politicians, public officials, civil servants – reach the public sphere without giving a thought to the importance of separating religious beliefs from public function. As a result, many lawmakers and public officials make decisions based on their religious beliefs. It is very common to find crucifixes, chapels and religious images in ministry buildings. In our everyday lives religion surrounds us and limits us; there are no clear boundaries between religious practice and public functions.
Ultra-conservative groups set themselves on this ground and seek to further expand the dictates of a religion that presents itself as homogeneous, with the intention of forcing all citizens to live according to their own beliefs and mandates. The problem is not religion in itself; the difficulty lies with the political use of religion within the political-public sphere, where there is a duty to guarantee human rights.
Civic space in Peru is rated as ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
Get in touch with Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir-Perú through their webpage and Facebook