More than 5,500 women, the majority of whom are minors, disappeared in Peru during the year 2020, double the previous year, according to a report by the Office of the Defender of Rights released on Tuesday.
"It is worrying to have such a high number of missing women in 2020 when we were in a context of containment and a pandemic where women were in their homes, a safer space",
responded to the 'AFP Patricia Sarmiento, in charge of women's rights in the office of the Defender of Rights.
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From the report titled
"What Happened to Them?"
, 1,686 adult women and 3,835 children and adolescents were reported missing in 2020, according to statistics compiled on the basis of the Ministry of the Interior's Missing Persons Tracing System.
Between March 15 and June 30, 2020, when Peru was under strict confinement, 915 women vanished, including 606 minors.
In 2019, 2,232 women had disappeared, according to figures provided by feminist associations.
This is the first year that the Office of the Defender of Rights has published such a report, according to Patricia Sarmiento.
"The question of the disappearance of these women is no longer linked to the idea that they disappear for personal reasons, but because of violence, human trafficking and feminicides",
adds. she.
The South American country of 31 million people recorded 138 feminicides in 2020;
34 women killed had been reported for disappearance.
In 2019, 166 feminicides had been identified.