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Overview and History of IWHC's work in Peru
IWHC has been active in Peru since 2002. Our Peruvian colleague organizations are a diverse group of local, national, and regional leaders with expertise in women's health policy; reproductive and sexual health priorities among indigenous women and youth; relationships between race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, health, and human rights; and young people's advocacy for youth-friendly public policies and health services.
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| An Asháninka woman from the Peruvian Amazon with her child. |
As in many countries, the population programs instituted in the 1960s and 1970s in Peru narrowly emphasized the delivery of contraceptives with little regard for women's human rights and few efforts to address the full range of women's reproductive health needs. Women from low-income, indigenous, rural, and otherwise marginalized communities suffered in particular from these policies. In response, organizations like Centro de la Mujer Peruana: Flora Tristán and Movimiento Manuela Ramos, two of IWHC's veteran colleagues, formed in the late 1970s to advocate for public policies and services grounded in a broader understanding of women's health and rights. Both organizations have since grown into recognized leaders on sexual and reproductive rights issues across Latin America.
After a tumultuous decade of transition from military rule to democracy, 1990 brought with it Alberto Fujimori's zero population growth initiative, marred by coerced sterilizations and abusive treatment of women in public clinics and hospitals. Feminists eagerly anticipated the transition to President Alejandro Toledo in 2001, but challenges in quality and access to reproductive health services have remained a major issue. In response, IWHC's colleagues have continued to balance advocacy for better policies at the national level with outreach and mobilization at the community level. Over the past decades, Manuela Ramos's participatory, community-driven approach to identifying and addressing indigenous women's reproductive health needs in Peru has become a model for work with indigenous communities across Latin America. We are currently supporting Manuela Ramos to apply the same methodology to its work with indigenous adolescents. Since 2002 we have also provided financial support and technical assistance to the Association for the Preservation of Cutivireni Heritage (ACPC) to develop a similar reproductive health program for Asháninka women, guided by women's own concerns and priorities and enlisting women themselves as health promoters and health system liaisons. At the national level, we support Flora Tristán's ongoing efforts to monitor public policies from a gender perspective, ensuring that they are grounded in respect for women's and young people's sexual and reproductive rights.
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| Monica Carrillo (right), founder and director of LUNDU, participates in a regional focus group on Latin American feminisms organized by IWHC. |
IWHC also partners with a number of groups that are working to address discrimination against Peruvian communities that have historically suffered from state and social discrimination. We support LUNDU—the only youth-founded, youth-led Peruvian feminist organization focused on empowering Afro-descendent communities-to address the sexual and reproductive health needs of Afro-Peruvians, in partnership with LUNDU-trained peer educators and local leadership. Since 2002 we have also supported the Lima-based Institute for Education and Health (IES) to conduct and disseminate groundbreaking participatory research on gender equality, sexual health, and political participation among Peruvian adolescents, who often lack access to accurate information on sexuality and reproduction.
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| Peruvian adolescents participating in an IWHC-sponsored focus group on adolescent health and rights in Lima. |
Following two decades of internal violent conflict and lack of democracy, Peruvian society is in transition, and real opportunities for participating in civic and political life are only just emerging. With over a third of Peruvians under 15, young people's ability to negotiate their adolescence in good health is critical to the country's future. As Peruvians adjust to a changing society, pronounced gender differences between young women and men's abilities to negotiate sexual relationships in the private sphere, and generational differentials limiting the ability of young people to access public space to demand their health and rights, remain major challenges to Peru's still-emerging democratic culture. IWHC recently supported a national research project to identify challenges and opportunities in adolescent health, rights, and participation in Peru. Based on the findings, we are now working with colleagues to develop resources that will help youth-serving and youth-led organizations support and empower adolescents more effectively. In the coming years, as we sustain support for our longtime feminist colleagues, we will also help them develop strategies to engage younger generations more fully as they work to secure sexual and reproductive health and rights for all Peruvians.
More about IWHC's colleagues in Peru>>
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