Although the regional government of Amazonas provided 4 lawyers to take the cases, only one continues due to lack of budget.
The education authorities of the Peruvian province of Condorcanqui, in the Amazon of Peru, confirmed that, Since 2010, they have registered more than 500 complaints of sexual abuse committed by teachers and educational assistants against minors from the Awajun community, The newspaper La República published this Monday.
The media pointed out that the information was confirmed by José Martínez Adanaqué, president of the Permanent Commission of Disciplinary Administrative Processes for Teachers of the Local Educational Management Unit (UGEL), who indicated that as They only have one lawyer in charge of 532 cases.
Martínez commented that the Government of the Amazonas region, to which the province of Condorcanqui belongs, supported them with a team of four lawyers from February to March. but that help was cut due to lack of budget.
“Now we only have one lawyer on the commission. The strength of this only lawyer is that she is Awajún and does not need a translator. We need more lawyers to expedite complaints,” said the official.
The media added that the director of the UGEL Condorcanqui, Percy Tuesta, indicated that has asked the regional government to send two lawyers, “but so far they are still waiting.”
The Republic pointed out that youth organizations from Amazonas held a march last weekend in the city of Chachapoyas to demand the support of the regional government and that “an exhaustive investigation” of these cases be carried out.
Two weeks ago it was revealed that there are hundreds of complaints of sexual harassment and abuse by teachers of primary and secondary students between 2010 and 2024 in Condorcanqui and explained that there were even HIV infections from the aggressors to the minors, from the Awajún ethnic group.
The controversial statements of two ministers
After this complaint became known, a great controversy was generated in the country when the Minister of Education, Morgan Quero, declared to journalists that they were going to work on “some type of solution to resolve the situation.” even “if it is a cultural practice.”
Despite the criticism that immediately arose from these statements, when the press asked, days later, the Minister of Women and Vulnerable Populations of Peru, Ángela Hernáández, about Quero’s phrase, She backed him up.
In the midst of the protests, which even led opposition legislators to call for the resignation or dismissal of both ministersQuero apologized last Thursday and accepted that he made “unacceptable statements.”
“They are apologies that imply the recognition of my errorby expressing myself in an inappropriate and imprecise manner last week in these unacceptable statements, which I myself raised on that occasion, in relation to the cultural practices of some indigenous peoples,” he said.
The minister assured that his sector is implementing various measures to address this problem in the Amazon and that has ordered that teachers who have been reported for these alleged violations be blocked in human resources systems so that they cannot access new positions.
Quero also said that a multi-sector commission has been formed “to serve a population that has been in a situation for a long time. very serious condition of abandonment and impunity also about these cases” and assured that during this week he will travel to the Amazon community of Santa María de Nieva.
According to data from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) daily, At least 11 girls become pregnant and 4 of them become mothers in Peru, and the Women’s Emergency Centers (CEM) reported 20,377 cases of sexual violence against minor victims in 2023.
