Women's Day: 10 power women who are examples of struggle and defense of their rights

Another March 8 that Peru is experiencing in the midst of a political and health crisis, causing issues of violence against women and femicides to move to a background. Dozens of women are raped and abused in their homes. If we compare the year 2021 with the year to date in 2022, we can see that in January alone there were 20 complaints of attempted femicide and 17 with characteristics of femicide, this according to official data from the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations ( MIMP).

Thousands of women struggle every day to advance their personal well-being and that of their families, many single mothers, outraged girls and women with disabilities seek to ensure that their rights are equal to those of men, to be treated equally, so this time 5M representing 8M took to the streets to have their voices heard .

The 8M is a day in which women are commemorated, but also women workers, and during the confinement it has been possible to show that many women have taken the role of housewives, a job that according to Rocío Maldonado, a social worker at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, does not have the same recognition as when working probably in a company.

“What is done inside the house is not considered as work. Unpaid domestic work continues to pigeonhole us and limits us to access the labour market,” Maldonado said.

That is why 10 Peruvian women out of thousands who are fighting for their rights to be heard and fulfilled, ask for justice for themselves or their affected families, some have already achieved it, but they are still fighting to ensure that these stories are not repeated. These are their stories.

CARMEN ZUNIGA

Carmen Zúñiga had a very violent youth on the part of the father of her four children, initially in Puno, with whom at the age of 20 began a relationship with him, she had never noticed his obsessive jealousy until one day she had gone to dinner with her friends from college and he beat her out of that place. The subject was a policeman, forbade him from seeing his friends and interacting with people other than himself. Then, they transferred him to Azángaro, Lima, to work, so both escaped without knowing that he was going to kidnap Carmen, without letting her go anywhere and sexually abusing her whenever he wanted, at that time she already had two children, one aged three and the other unborn.

The only place she could go out to eat was the policemen's dining room, until one of the people attending the dining room convinced her to escape, he paid her and her children for the bus, when he went to work, he ran away. Once on the bus, she doesn't know how her attacker found her and beat her out of the car, that's when the situation worsened, as he locked her in a room. It was 15 years that she was with him, enduring everything he did to her. When she reported him to the police, she blamed it on her, minimizing the marks and blood that ran down her face. She finally escaped because a neighbor of hers told her that the man was turning her around, when she faced him for the last time, he tried to hit her, but she threw an iron in his face and escaped with her four children, they invaded a piece of land in the fishing boat and since Sedapal gave them 2000 suns due to the flood that occurred, they have not stopped fighting, since now Mrs. Carmen is in charge of helping raped women making common pots in the depths of Villa María del Triunfo.

CECILIA HUAMAN

A single mother seeking justice for her daughter named Maria Fernanda Guillen Huaman who was murdered in her room in Chalhuanca, Apurimac in 2018. She had a relationship at the age of 19 and lived with him in a room, they always argued, months later they separated because of a strong argument, a man came to the room who was a friend of her boyfriend and he began to have a strange attitude. One day, Maria Fernanda arrived to change, since she was going to go out to a party and from that moment on she was not heard from anymore.

A year after struggling so hard to get justice done for her daughter, she realized that she didn't have a fiscal file for her case. It has not been investigated as it should be, evidence has been erased, no examinations or examinations were carried out. Today, Cecilia is still looking for answers about her daughter's death and her ex-partner has led everyone to believe that she committed suicide herself. It is almost four years since the lady seeks justice for her daughter, because they have filed the case, but this man remains free in the streets without responding to the death of Maria Fernanda.

ROSA JUAREZ

Rosa is a lady who has been visually impaired since she was born, she tells us that she has struggled to get a job since she left university using braille. She is the mother of two teenagers who do not suffer from this disability, but has suffered several times from acts of discrimination both because she is a woman and because she has this visual impairment. At one point, she met with the director of UNMSM because she wanted to apply and at the same time inform him that she suffered from blindness, but he told her that he was going to the university to distract the students and that “his prestige is lowered”.

After several years looking for a job, being rejected and without even proving her abilities, she got one at the General Directorate of Environmental Health and Food Safety ( DIGESA) of the Ministry of Health (Minsa), where it is currently working in the area of citizen care. Rosa told Infobae that during the first years she was in Minsa she suffered from discrimination and sexual harassment, she was touched and taken advantage of because of her disability, once she went to the bathroom and realized that she was being photographed from below. She is currently attending feminist marches so that her rights as a disabled person and as a woman are heard.

NANCY TARAZONA

Nancy is a 31-year-old lady who is the leader of Carabayllo, makes different movements in the district and is very close to the local policies of violence, she is also a bisexual woman. When a person likes someone of the same gender, things get complicated; she says that it affects her mental health a lot, aggressions are made on public roads towards her, adding to the fear that they may take away their sons or daughters, since we are a country in which conservatism is still very present. She commented that little by little bisexual women are resisting in collectivity, but if it is an issue that is felt directly. A close friend of Nancy experienced the impact of conversion therapies that directly induce suicide as well as the alliance with fundamentalisms and church.

MARIA CASALINO

With an 18-year-old now adult and a 26-year-old autistic son who died due to little attention to COVID-19, Maria Casalino is a 40-year-old single mother who has been fighting her problems for several years. In 2018, his eldest son, Jean Pierre, was left alone at home and from one moment to the next his small house located in Puente Piedra was already completely incinerated, even the young man had burn wounds on his body. Days later, a public institution of the State approaches them and they offer them land, she gladly accepts and once the corresponding photo was taken they proceeded to charge her for the land. Maria didn't have any money, so they had to leave and continue looking for a home. She agreed that a friend of hers, who lived in Carabayllo, was going to live in Cusco to work on her farm with her husband, so that became her new home.

María is dedicated to street vending, but to take care of her children she decided to start selling menus at home. Her daughter went to school, but she went alone, since she had to take care of Jean Pierre. At one point the youngest was leaving school with her friends and a man approached them on a motorcycle, as when playing Maricielo gets on her way. It was a total of three weeks that nothing was known about her, until she was found being abused in a child trafficking prostitution ring in Puente Piedra, after years of intensive care, Maricielo was able to speak again. Currently María continues to live in Carabayllo making her menus, but every day she hopes that the same thing will not happen to anyone else, without anyone's help, she takes her daughter forward so that she can continue to overcome the severe trauma she had several years ago and for both to overcome the loss of her brother and eldest son.

MARIA FERNANDEZ

Maria is a 30-year-old single mother who met her ex-partner at the Women's Emergency Center (CEM), since he was a worker there and she had asked for some kind of care at the time. What she didn't imagine is that the man who broke into her house last year could outrage her youngest 10-year-old daughter. The abuser abused his youngest daughter only once and found him in the middle of the act, and finally lodged a complaint. It should be noted that she was not the only girl who outraged, the lady communicated with the other mother and both agreed on stories. As soon as the act of rape happened, they went to a hospital in the center of Lima, but they did not give him any emergency kit, there was no obstetrician, psychologists or pediatricians, the kit was only received the day after the rape event. The girl was traumatized by the event and Maria continues to fight so that more girls are not raped or abused, she is talking and talking with her daughter to teach her what is right and what is wrong. The man is finally sentenced to life imprisonment, but he constantly finds himself trying to free himself from his sentence.

SANDY EVANGELISTA

At just eight years old, she had to witness the death of her 25-year-old older sister who was killed by her partner. Sandy's sister was murdered in 2006 and the man was identified as Nicolas Vasquez Velarde with whom he had a 10-year relationship. According to the relatives, he would have killed her, because he planned to travel to Chile for work, he found out and killed her. After committing this crime, the femicide escaped and justice never did anything; it was three times that she denounced her aggressor, but she was never helped. The first time was because he threw stones at her, the second because of a suffocation that left her almost unconscious, and the last time because he made her dig a hole to say that she had buried herself alive. Complaints can only be made three times, so every year after his death, his mother had to renew the arrest warrant every three years.

Sandy claims that her sister realized that she was a victim of violence, but he used blackmail and constantly threatened her not to leave. Finally, in 2016 he was arrested because the Ministry of the Interior began its reward program, at that time he was sentenced for simple homicide (15 years in prison), then changed to parricida (35 years), but then he was lowered to 28 years because it was proven that it was not an act of jealousy. Currently, she has been serving five years in prison, but Sandy fights day by day, through her collective Families United for Justice, so that this situation does not happen again with anyone else.

INDIA JOY

A lawyer who fights for a more equitable and equal education that allows to review the roles and development of the person taking into account equality because what is needed is mutual respect between men and women to build a more just society on that basis.

Women's rights are inherent in them, they owe no one, so within the framework of International Women's Day which demands respect and equal treatment. She is a lawyer who demands that women be able to choose to participate in an organization, in politics or in other activities, but without having to have a workload or suffer harassment.

BLANCA QUISPE

Blanca Quispe Canaza is a former student of Communication Sciences, whose history has traveled throughout the country, as she has become the first to support her undergraduate thesis in Aymara language at the National University of the Altiplano in Puno (UNAP), in dialogue with the Andean Agency. The thesis is entitled “Contribution of the Aymara Native Language through the Puno radio media”; its configuration contextualizes the message contents of the radio programs produced in the Aymara language and their perception in the Aymara populations of Puno.

The research is based on interviews with Aymara broadcasters on the contents of the message in the production of radio programs, as well as interviews with the Aymara population in the district of Conima, in the province of Moho. It seeks to maintain the native languages of each region and apply them in the different universities.

VERONICA MELZI

A young businesswoman spoke with the newspaper Perú 21 and highlighted that her main objective is to boost the potential of Peruvian women through entrepreneurship. After searching for her vocation for many years, Verónica Melzi was not satisfied with anything. Fortunately, his parents were never impatient and, on the contrary, they gave him enough time to rethink his destiny. It was there that she realized that she had her passion in front of her: during her years at school she was always linked to social work, she enjoyed serving a lot and was very good at communicating things. There Veronica has found her place in the world, her space to continue serving through corporate social responsibility. He has been able to build the dream of hundreds of women together with his own.

WHAT IS NEEDED FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS TO BE RESPECTED?

While progress has been made on feminist issues in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic stopped all this progress. In the case of work, Maldonado commented that for women to be empowered they must feel safe to be able to go out to work.

“The State should offer women workers options to leave their children in day care centers, they need to be given ease in reconciling domestic life and work. That they feel safe to leave and that the parent or relative does not violently or outrage their children in their own home,” he added.

The marches in favor of feminism and women's equal rights take place every year, but these, according to statistics, do not reduce this violence, the expert believes that men believe that “all women's rights have already been fulfilled”.

“They believe that everything we wanted has been done, we are already in Congress, we have already voted, we already have independence at work, we already have high labor positions, they believe that the fight we are undertaking is enough and exaggerated. They want to take away value and meaning from the feminist struggle,” she said.

“Wanting to sensitize a male chauvinist is difficult, he doesn't have the capacity to question everyday life, women do, that's what he has given us,” he added.

To get out of a violent circle, she considers that it is necessary to have a friend, a sister or any woman close to her who can tell if something is wrong, in order to alert her and remove her from that vicious circle.

“Women's collectives make them have spaces for departure and conversation, a friend, companion sister who realizes the situation externally. Not allowing phrases like 'if you don't love me', this falls within the discourse of romantic love, which is fiction and unreal. We must work on relationships on an equal footing,” he said.

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