Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz

Of the 594 people that have been reported missing in Peru in 2008, 258 (43 percent) of them are minors, reported Acción por los Niños, a Peruvian NGO.

Furthermore, the NGO confirmed that the number of children and adolescents missing in 2008 was three percent higher than the total number of minors missing in 2007.

More attention was brought to this problem and these figures were revealed after Sandra Carvajal Herrera, a six-year-old girl from the province of Chincha disappeared and was recently found murdered.

Figures show that the majority of minors missing in Peru in 2008 (153) are between the ages of 15 and 17. Seventy-five of them are between 12 and 14 and twenty of them are between the ages of 11 and 9.

Of the 258 minors that have been reported missing this year, only five have been found. Four of them were between the ages of 15 and 17 while one was from 12 - 14 years old.

Acción por los Niños stated that no child under the age of 11 has been found this year and assured that this called for government policies that protected Peru's youth.

A suggestion made by the NGO was for the government to establish safe places where parents could leave their children while they went to work.

The NGO also reminded police that they no longer had to wait 24 hours to look for a child that has been reported missing.

Thirty percent of the children reported missing in 2007 were found.

(LIP-ir) -- The Ministry of Women & Social Development (MIMDES) will carry out the first “raid” of parents who rent or use their children by dressing them in rags and have them beg in the streets, announced Minister Susana Pinilla.

Although she did not mention where these raids would take place exactly, Pinilla explained that a ministerial group was evaluating the punishment bad parents would receive for these acts against children's rights.

"Any person that uses a child for these activities will receive a serious punishment, this is to avoid the use of children for begging on the streets in different ways, for example, begging on a corner, selling on the streets or used as ‘mules’", she stated.

She said the Ministry of Women would not allow children to work because this was a commitment made in the Free Trade Agreement between Peru and the United States.

“We are firm on this subject, it is better that Peru's society understands the consequences of their actions, because we will use all the law's power to avoid this situation”, she stressed.

On previous occasions, this initiative was named “Campaign against begging”, in which Peru's National Police along with the Public Ministry and the Ministry of Women took in abandoned street kids and placed them in the care of the National Institute of Family Welfare.

News source: ANDINA

(LIP-ir) -- In an effort to collect fifty thousand signatures before November 30, a crusade has been organized across the country to support a project that has as its main objective to ban the corporal punishment of children in Peru, reported Andina news service.

The organizations supporting the effort are Infant, Save The Children, Organizaciones de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes, Plan Internacional and the Pacto por el Buen Trato.

It was reported that the idea is to modify articles 4 and 74 of the Code for Boys, Girls and Adolescents, which states that a father should "moderately correct" his children.

It is argued that the law does not prohibit the corporal punishment of children and does not specify when "correcting" a child is moderate or excessive.

For these reasons it is necessary to modify the law to protect children and adolescents against corporal punishment, reported Andina.

Sheets that can be signed by those wising to support have been distributed in the cities of Huancavelica, Ica, Arequipa, Piura, Cusco, Pucallpa and other cities across Peru. The signed sheets are to be collected by different organizations, schools, NGOs and other such entities.

The fifty thousand signatures are to support the proposal to change the law and will be given to Peru's Congress during the "Goodbye to Punishment Parade", which is to be held on December 7.

(LIP-ir) -- Seven out of ten children that chat with a stranger on the Internet end up being harassed by the stranger in some way, reported Peru's Ministry for Women and Social Development (MIMDES) at the inauguration of a new program today.

It was reported that the number of children being abused by adults, which find their victims over the Internet has increased over the past years and for this reason Peru's MIMDES has launched the "Chat thinking, Chat safely" campaign.

MIMDES has launched the campaign in an effort to make children and adolescents aware of the dangers of meeting and speaking to a stranger online and through an Internet chat.

A pamphlet is being distributed among children and adolescents warning as well as advising them to never accept if a person asks them to pose, take pictures of themselves or do anything for money because it is very likely that the images will be sold or posted on the Internet.

The pamphlet lists a series of ways that adults have tricked other minors into doing things that are illegal and warns youngsters what to do or not to do in various situations.

Peru's Minister for Women and Social Development, Virginia Borra inaugurated the campaign in Callao today and told young people to trust more in their parents and less in strangers they meet on the Internet because they could be pedophiles looking for their next victim.

(LIP-ir) -- Solaris, an NGO that has been working in Lambayeque, Peru and other cities in the country for seven years, has as one of its main objectives to provide children throughout Peru with the necessary energy and nutrition they need to study and carry out other academic tasks.

A total of 19 thousand 970 elementary school students, belonging to 31 schools in Chiclayo and ranging from the ages of 6 - 12, are provided with a daily serving of enriched milk and bread which has also been supplemented to provide the children with much needed nutrition.

Napoleón Castro de Cavalcanti, the coordinator for the Solaris project in Chiclayo, Peru explained that the project which provides the children with some of the nutrition they need is not only an effort being made by the NGO but an effort made by teachers and parents.

"Each school has a committee made up of the principal, a representative of the teachers and a representative of the parents - all of which are in charge of managing the operation, preparing the rations which are given to the school children, etcetera. These groups are trained by Solaris," explained Castro.

Apart from providing the children with a complement to their daily diet, the NGO also teaches the children good hygiene. For instance, the children have been taught and are required to wash their hands before they eat.

(LIP-ir) -- Peru's Expreso daily reported today that over 10 thousand abandoned children in State orphanages across Peru would have the chance to be raised in a family environment thanks to a new Foster Care program established by the National Institute of Family Welfare (INABIF).

Peru's INABIF Executive Director, Dra. Nélida Chávez de Lock explained that the program would begin by helping 500 children between the ages of 5 -12, all currently living in state institutions.

The children which will be part of the program are children whose parents are going through an extremely difficult financial situation, are in prison or have mistreated the children somehow.

The children are to be placed in foster homes, supervised by INABIF, while a team of professionals works with the families of the children to try and create adequate living conditions which will permit for the children to return with their biological families.

Chávez explained that the program tried to keep from "institutionalizing" the children by giving them a chance to temporarily live in a family environment which would facilitate the development of their personality and tend to their educational, emotional, recreational and nutritional needs.

Peru's INABIF Executive Director stated that despite the fact that the children in State institutions were cared for and protected, their personal growth and development was limited because of a lack of affection from a family.

(LIP-ir) -- Surco, a district in Lima, Peru has begun an effort to end the cycle of children begging in its streets.

Neighbors are being encouraged not to give children money for the sale of candy or stunts performed on street corners, due to the fact that the money goes to unscrupulous adults that make money off of the children.

The Mayor of Surco made this announcement in a meeting with children at the Santiago Apóstol sporting facility, where he launched the "Say No to begging" campaign. The campaign has been programmed to begin during Surco's Children's Week.

"We have seen a large quantity of children asking for money, with adults behind them, who transport them and leave them at street corners, this is nothing but child abuse. They come from Villa María del Triunfo, San Juan de Miraflores and a small amount are from Santiago de Surco," stated the Mayor.

Surco's Mayor explained that around 250 children circle the district's streets, moving from one street to another, depending on police and serenazgo presence.

"The first thing we are going to do is make neighbors aware. There would not be children in the street, nor would people take advantage of them, if we didn't give them money," stated the Mayor. He added that motorists would be educated, due to the fact that they are the ones that give the most money.

Del Mar explained that the "Say No to begging" campaign was directly related to a service project headed by Surco's Municipality, which provides children with lunch on a daily basis. "We are currently feeding 150 children, but we would like for there to be more," stated del Mar.

The Mayor stated that if neighbors wanted to help the children, they could do so through the Municipality's service project. He added that other districts could take part in the campaign and suggested that it could be applied nationwide.

(LIP-wb) -- The campaign "Ángeles que aguardan" (Angels who wait) of Peru's Ministry for Woman and Social Development allowed the adoption of 28 children - 18 boys and 10 girls - by Peruvian and foreign parents.

Sahda Fayad, head of the National Secretariat for Adoptions, said the children come from biological parents with mental problems, retardation, schizophrenia, or they are victims of sexual violation.

With respect to the adopting families, she indicated that ten of them are Peruvian couples, three are married with foreigners, and 15 are foreign.

“We tried to get a complete diagnosis of the boys and girls, mentally and physically. We wanted to provide truthful and transparent information for the adopting families with the objective to create a satisfactory and healthy relation”, affirmed Sahda Fayad.