Investigations continued into deaths during protests in 2022 and 2023. Bills before Congress threatened to restrict civil society. Wildfires affected large areas causing death and destruction. Human rights defenders remained at risk, particularly Indigenous leaders, and protection mechanisms were lacking. Public health facilities were inadequate and people increasingly used private services at their own expense. LGBTI rights were overlooked and “transsexuality” was declared a “mental disorder”. Only therapeutic abortion was legal and access to it was inadequate. Lawmakers proposed the elimination of comprehensive sex education. Sexual and gender-based violence remained widespread. Actual and proposed changes to legislation risked impunity for historic crimes against humanity. Authorities continued to expel refugees and migrants, and a resolution made access to visas for Venezuelans and others more difficult.
Background
Congress made political decisions weakening the mandate of several state institutions that protect human rights.
The presidential announcement of the closure of the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations demonstrated the government’s lack of commitment to combat gender-based violence.
Freedom of expression and assembly
Criminal investigations were ongoing into 50 deaths and hundreds of injuries during protests between December 2022 and February 2023.1 In July, the Public Prosecutor’s Office initiated criminal proceedings against high-ranking military and police officers and the Attorney General presented a second constitutional complaint against President Dina Boluarte and five of her former ministers. Investigations into killings during protests in November 2020 had not made significant progress.
Bills were presented before Congress that would expand state supervision over civil society organizations, restrict civic space and external financing, and create administrative offences for actions that disturb public order.
Right to a healthy environment
Between January and November, the National Institute of Civil Defence identified more than 241 wildfires in the country, causing 35 deaths and injuring 285 people. Several communities and protected natural areas were severely affected.
Three years after the oil spill off the coast of Ventanilla on the outskirts of the capital Lima, the Environmental Assessment and Oversight Agency reported that 19 affected sites still showed evidence of environmental damage. Authorities continued to fail to provide adequate support to communities affected by environmental contamination in Espinar province, Cusco department.
In December, authorities declared a 90-day environmental emergency due to an oil spill on Lobitos beach, Talara province, Piura department, that affected over 275 hectares, including the southern section of the Mar Tropical de Grau National Reserve.
Human rights defenders
Four land, territory and environmental defenders were killed in the year. Two of them were killed in the buffer zone around the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve and had protection measures from the Intersectoral Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders.
The Ministry of the Interior continued to lack a protocol to coordinate the protection of human rights defenders with the police.
In April, the perpetrators of the 2014 murder of four environmental defenders of the Ashéninka Indigenous people were convicted.
Right to health
Structural barriers existed in access to adequate healthcare.2 As a result, rates of self-medication remained high and there was increased demand for medical attention in pharmacies, private clinics and hospitals, disproportionately burdening people on lower incomes.
The Peruvian Medical Association denounced the shortage of medicines in public health facilities and the authorities’ inadequate response to tackle the issue.
LGBTI people’s rights
The rights of LGBTI people continued to be disregarded and Congress failed to pass a law on legal gender recognition and marriage equality.
A decree by the Ministry of Health declared “transsexuality” a “mental disorder”, contrary to WHO guidelines. Following complaints, the ministry clarified that in practice transgender people should not be treated as having mental disorders, but the decree remained in place.
Civil society organizations criticized a civil union bill for same-sex couples that advanced in Congress, as it was considered discriminatory, focused on the protection of patrimony and did not include all rights of same-sex couples, such as obtaining nationality or residence.
Sexual and reproductive rights
One hundred years after the decriminalization of therapeutic abortion, barriers that limit access to this fundamental right persisted and access to such abortions was inadequate. In 2024, 1,080 girls under 15 years of age carried pregnancies to term, one of whom was aged under 11.
The state failed to apply the recommendations on therapeutic abortions for all minors issued by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which in 2023 ruled in favour of the case of Camila, a 13-year-old Indigenous girl who had been denied an abortion.
Access to the Ministry of Education’s comprehensive sex education guides was temporarily restricted, but resumed after complaints from civil society organizations. Nonetheless, in October, lawmakers introduced Bill 9174 which proposed the elimination of comprehensive sex education.
Sexual and gender-based violence
In 2024, the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations registered 168,492 cases of violence against women and other vulnerable groups. Of these, 32,388 were cases of sexual violence, of which 22,797 (70%) were against people aged up to 17 years. The Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations registered 12,924 cases of rape against women, of which 65% (8,416 cases) were against girls and adolescents. However, only 2,768 rape kits were delivered, raising questions about whether all protection protocols for victims of sexual violence had been implemented. Over the same period, 162 femicides were registered. According to the Ministry of the Interior, 10,278 women and girls were reported missing in 2024, representing 58% of all missing persons.
Right to truth, justice and reparation
In August, Law 32107 came into effect applying the statute of limitations to crimes against humanity and war crimes committed before the Rome Statute came into force in 2002. This ran contrary to Peru’s obligations under international law, such as the 1968 Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. Nevertheless, judges did not apply this law in at least three cases, including the Huanta case, in which a ruling against two former Senior Commanders of the Peruvian Navy was finally made on the murder of six people and the enforced disappearance of more than 50 in 1984 in Huanta province, Ayacucho department, as well as the enforced disappearance of journalist Jaime Alaya during the internal armed conflict. Congress continued to discuss Bill 7549, which would grant amnesty to members of the armed forces, police and government officials who have not received a final sentence in cases relating to the fight against armed opposition groups between 1980 and 2000.
In June, the judiciary handed down a historic sentence against 13 former members of the military for the rape of 10 peasant women in Manta y Vilca, Huancavelica province, Huancavelica department in the 1980s, during the internal armed conflict.
A court order initiated the process of comprehensive reparations for victims of forced sterilization during the 1990s.
Refugees’ and migrants’ rights
Authorities continued to expel migrants under the legal framework of the Special Exceptional Administrative Sanction Procedure without the guarantee that individuals would be received by another country.
In July, a resolution came into force eliminating the exemption to require a passport for the issue of humanitarian visas for vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly and chronically ill. It also required valid passports for Venezuelans, undermining the rights of thousands with limited access to updated identity documents.
In October, the government issued a decree making it compulsory for hotels and other accommodation to request foreigners’ travel documents and report this information to the authorities, with fines for establishments that failed to do so.
