•  lima
• Monday, April 18, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Legally, each of Peru's 25 administrative regions must have a plan for promoting equal opportunities for women. But over the last year, only 10 regions have actually allocated resources to the task of overcoming gender inequity, while another 10 have not even drawn up the compulsory equal opportunities plan.

The Ombudsman's Office (Defensoría del Pueblo, DDP) issued a report in March that analyses this information and states that only 15 regional governments have approved gender equality plans, and of these, five have not earmarked any funds to put them into effect.

Among the regions lacking plans or funds for promoting equal opportunities are Apurímac, Huancavelica, Cajamarca, Huánuco, Ancash, Cuzco and Puno, which also have the highest rates of illiteracy among the general population and, specifically, among women, and the highest rates of gender-based violence.

'Many women are victims of domestic violence, but do not report it because they are too afraid of their husbands, and because many people still do not accept that women have rights,' Elsa Mamani told IPS while travelling through the southern Andean region of Cuzco.

Mamani is a leading activist with the Coordinadora Departamental de Defensorías Comunitarias (CODECC), an organisation of about 500 women advocates in Cuzco region who accompany and support victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse and mistreatment, and assist them in filing and following up complaints.

However, not all Peruvian women have adopted this vigorous approach; most women still find themselves neglected and forgotten by the state, in spite of the Law on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, in force since 2007.

Among its provisions, the law calls for the viewpoints of both women and men to be included when formulating regional development policies, plans, budgets and projects, and establishes 13 common guidelines for measures to promote equal opportunities.

The DDP's fourth annual report monitoring compliance by regional governments with the Law on Equal Opportunities recognises that they have made progress in passing norms and regulations for the benefit of women, but not in allocating resources to close the gender gap.

Official statistics show that maternal mortality, gender-based violence, illiteracy and lack of access to paid work are major problems for Peruvian women. The Apurímac region, in particular, has the highest rates of violence against women and of illiteracy in the country. In this southern Andean region, 54.5 percent of women have been physically abused by their partners, according to the 2009 Family Health and Demographic Survey.

The regional government drew up a plan to promote equal opportunities in 2010, but did not earmark any funds for preventing and punishing violence against women. 'The law's budgetary requirements are not being implemented, even though spending decisions are necessary for concrete steps to be taken towards closing the gaps,' Eugenia Fernán-Zegarra, head of the women's rights section of the DDP, told IPS. Only four of the 25 regional governments have invested part of their budget to combat gender-based violence.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service