COMITÉ LATINOAMERICANO Y DEL CARIBE PARA LA DEFENSA DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS DE LAS MUJERES – CLADEM
ALTERNATIVE REPORT OF THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD (BOYS, GIRLS AND ADOLESCENTS)
PERU PERIOD 2005
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purpose of this Alternative Report is to report priority the problematic of the recognition and exercise of the rights of the child, intertwining them with the right to life, to the equality and not discrimination, established in articles 7°, 24°, 32° and 34° of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereinafter, “The Convention”).
RIGHT TO THE IDENTITY
The Peruvian State does not recognize the discrimination, problem that suffers the sons and daughters borned out of marrige, related to the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including a name. The Ombudsman Office has recommended to the Peruvian Congress[1]:
· To Modify articles 21° and 392° of the Civil Code and article 37° of the Inscription Regulation of the “National Registration of Identification and Civil Status (“Registro Nacional de Identificación y Estado Civil”, hereinafter, “RENIEC”), in order to register those sons or daughters borned out of marriage with the surname of the presumed ancestor who did not recognize them; with the only statement of the mother or father that recognize them and without establishing a filial relation with the first one. It includes the possibility that the mother or father who sign the child could consign the name of the indicated ancestor.
· To Modify article 1° of the Law Nº 27188, that modified article 53° of the Supreme Decree N° 017-93-JUS, in order to offer competence to the family judges to be in charge of the usurpation name processes in those cases in which the plaintiff considers that is being affected by the registration of his/her name in any birth certificate.
The phenomenon of the not-recognition only affects single mothers and especially adolescents mothers, not affecting fathers, implying the demonstration of a discriminatory treatment, that specially affects to the son or daughter not recognized by his/her father. This prohibition hurts the rights recognized by paragraphs 1) and 2) of article 2º of the Political Constitution, which are related to the rights to the identity and equality; article 6° referred to the not discrimination between marital and out of marrige children; Children and Adolescents Code, as well as the International Conventions related to the Infancy and Human Rights, ratified by the Peruvian State. In spite of the recommendation of the Ombudsman office, the Republic Congress archived (May, 2005) two Law projects[i] that proposed to modify the laws established in the civil code according to the recommendations of the Ombudsman Office.
RIGHT TO HEALTH AND MEDICAL ASSISTANCE
In Peru, twelve of each hundred pregnants are teens, this adolescents mothers percentage has not reduced during the last years. In 2000, the cases registered were 13% and until 2004 the cases registered were 12,7%. The adolescent girls of the Oriental Region (Forest) present a greater incident (29%). According to the National Survey of Homes of the last year (“Encuesta Nacional de Hogares”, hereinafter, “ENAHO 2004”) a 30% of these mothers are 19 years old, and other 10% are 17 years old. [ii]
If it seems that there is a light percentage decrease, but actually, if we compare the number of teen mothers between 15 and 19 years old during the period 2000-2004, there is an increment of 2,211 new teen mothers.
The public policies directed to prevent, through the information and sensitivity, the topic of the adolescent pregnant results almost non-existent for the State, although this topic is one of the actions predicted in the National Plan of Action by the Infancy and Adolescence 2002-2010, even though Peruvian Government has done little in favor of it.
INSTITUTIONALIZED GIRLS
Law N° 28330[iii], modified some articles of the Children and Adolescents Code, regarding the tutelary investigation process[iv], giving competence to the Woman and Social Development Ministry (hereinafter, “MIMDES”), principal entity of the integral attention system of the boy, girl and adolescent, to carry out the mentioned process. Nevertheless, up to date this competence has not been assumed by the MIMDES. Until this competence will not be assumed formally by the MIMDES, the Judicial Court is in charge to resolve the problems of this social group, because of the lack social politics of protection of the Peruvian State.
In spite of the great importance and significance of this law and having been approved on August, 2004, with a term of 60 work days in order to be regulated, it has elapsed more than one year and at the present time the regulation has not been approved. In this sense, the Judicial Court continues in charge of this kind of process, which results a cultural and social situation more than a legal one, due the nature of the said process, in which does not exist controversy between the parties.
EDUCATION
Data about education in Peru refers that the public investment in this component, is one of the lowest of the region. Between 1992 and 2001, the Central Government assigned to the education an annual average of 16% of its general investment, while Ecuador did it in a 18%, the same as Chile, and Colombia did it in 20%, being Mexico the country that invested a greater percentage equivalent to the 26%.
In andean and amazonian zones, the crossing between poverty and cultural ethnic characteristics, produces low quality in education, preserving the historic exclusion of these human groups and limiting the development possibilities of these zones. It deserves special preoccupation the situation of the girls, the same ones that have less opportunities and greater discrimination also in their reference communities. The poor peruvian population and those who live in severy poverty only can accede (with luck) to the state educational system, which is characterized for its low quality and very bad infrastructure. In our country the 54% of the population is poor[2], the severy poors inahibtants represent the 24% of the total of the population[3]. The poverty in rural zone affects to the 78,4% of the inhabitants and the 51% of the rural inhabitants are severy poor, while in the urban area 42% of the inhabitants are poor and 10% extreme poor.
The Multisectoral Educational Promotion Committee of Girls and Adolescents (2003)[4] is the responsible to propose and reach poilcies and actions for the fulfillment of the objectives established in Law Nº 27588, “Education of Rural Girls and Adolescents Promotion Law” [5]. But, lamentably, after to years of the installation of the mentioned Committee, it does not fulflll with its responsabilities, due to the lack of regulation of the Law Nº 27588.
PROTECTION OF THE CHILDREN ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION
The child domestic work (hereinafter, “CDW”), also called services realized in third persons homes, is a work carried out especially by young girls and adolescent women. When are boys who are in charge of the execution of this kind of work, their principal works are gardening, cleaning (as sweeping, tarpauling or cleaning of windows) and/or security; while the girls generally are in charge of the household, cooking, ironing and takin care of the children, old people or sick persons. Many times the girl who works in third persons homes, loses the bond with her biological family and generally cannot continue with her studies. The great number of girls who realize domestic work are not registered in the Labor Ministry.
The Peruvian Code of the Children and Adolescents has not been modified in order to adapt it to the International Labour Organization Convenant Nº 138[6] and 182[7], in that way children can work since 12 years old with authorization of their parents, under the minimum standard age for work, interfering with children schooling. The Office for Child Protection of the Peruvian Labor Ministry, entity that is in charge of watching for the security and health care in the work of the childhood and adolescence, doesn’t count with a methodological guide of inspection of the adolescent work, even less for the domestic work which is carried out mainly by girls and young women. Generally, the girls and adolescents that render services in third persons homes are continued expose to sexual harassment, rape and sexual abuse. Regarding the familiar work, the stereotyped patterns of behavior continues assigning home tasks to girls, including the care of other children and old persons.
The National Plan of Prevention and Eradication of the Child Work takes as one of its intervention approaches, the gender approach. Nevertheless, the mentioned National Plan does not consider any effective measure to protect the girls who work, especially those that realize domestic work. The sexual violence against girls that realize domestic work, is a latent problem that is not mentioned in official reports.
EXPLOITATION AND SEXUAL ABUSE
There is not an adequate system of registration and vigilance of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation, about it we can affirm the real magnitude of this gender violence. Sadly, the Peruvian State and the Civil Society has not done any rigorous investigations about this social phenomenon neither the real magnitude of the child and adolescent pornography, specially the one that is difuse to other countries through Internet.
An strong punitive and legislative development emphasis exists in Perú, which puts outside the prevention actions and the adequated social intervention for the eradication of the Commercial Sexual Explotation of Children (CSEC). The report elaborated by the Multi sectoral Commission of the National Plan of Action by the Infancy and Adolescence and presented before the Peruvian Congress, indicates that “In the framework of the National Plan of Action by the Infancy and the Adolescence, the MIMDES will prioritize the interinstitutional coordination for the diffusion and effective application of the Law 28251, about the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, expanding the execution of agreements in the regions that presents more number of crimes punished by this Law.” [8]
The Peruvian State needs to design an adequate state intervention in order to eradicate the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents – CSEC. The policies of promotion and development of the Tourism, will permit not only a greater economic income, they are also opportunities for the promotion and development of the common call “sexual tourism”, the same one that is an expression of the Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents. The policies of Tourism promotion should predict the design, implementation and assigment of the attention services, as well as the development of accusation and protection for victims of commercial and sexual exploitation mechanisms.
INTRODUCTION
The present Report has been elaborated by CLADEM-PERU, in the framework of the mandate established in article 44° of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, through which we support the actual situation of the Peruvian boys, girls and adolescents about priority topics for their attention.
With deep preoccupation, CLADEM - Peru notifies before the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the breach on the part of the Peruvian State respect to the international commitments assumed within the force of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (hereinafter, “The Convention”). This situation also implies the ignorance of the world-wide consensuses adopted in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as in the agreements before the International Community such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) –and the goals for the Infancy.
The mentioned breach is expressed, especially regarding to the rights to the education, health, not institutionalization and to the recreation, in the maintenance of policies, practices and discriminatory laws, the samen ones that generate situations of violence against girls, boys and adolescents. Because of it, the purpose of this Alternative Report is to report priority the problematic of the recognition and exercise of such rights, intertwining them with the right to the life, to the equality and not discrimination, which are established in the articles 7°, 24°, 32° and 34° of the Convention.
The present report has elaborated within the interpretive frameworks developed through the General Observations and the specific Recommendations realized by the Committee to the Peruvian State, in order to contrast them with the Official Report and the Lifting of the Observations formulated by the Committee.
Though the Report presented by the Peruvian State for the evaluation of the Committee on the Rights of children in January 2006 corresponds to the period 1998-2002, the evaluation realized by CLADEM – Perú for the analysis of the present report has had as reference the said report, the actual situation in which the infancy policies, as well as the advances and backward movements regarding the infancy and adolescence.
It is important to indicate that in Peru, the situation of the infancy and specially of the first infancy, is in a little favourable situation respect to their basic needs, which are necessary to reach their development. According to the report “Toward to the fulfilment of the Millenium Development Objectives in Peru”[v], the malnutrition in the childhood truncates the possibilities of cognitive and conductual development, hinders the profit and school performance, and produces permanent negative consequences in people health. In other words, the malnutrition decreases the future levels of adults labor productivity .