The Women Of Peru Are Suffering From A 'Shadow Pandemic'

The Women Of Peru Are Suffering From A 'Shadow Pandemic' Enlarge this image toggle caption Carlos Garcia Granthon/Fotoholica Press/LightRocket via Getty Images Carlos Garcia Granthon/Fotoholica Press/LightRocket via Getty Images It's a grim roster of alerts. That's what we're seeing throughout this pandemic," says Isabel Ortiz, a human rights lawyer with the women's rights office of Peru's National Ombudsman's office, an independent group that monitors the country's human rights. Peru is far from the only country where reports suggest that fears about increasing violence against women and children have come to fruition: From Tunisia to Argentina to the United States, calls to domestic abuse helplines spiked during the early days of confinement, according to the U.N. For example, calls to the U.K.'s National Domestic Abuse hotline spiked by 25% in the first week of lockdown, and France reported a 30 percent increase in domestic abuse cases, according to the U.N. Violence against women is pervasive across Latin America as a whole, in part because of the region's history of political and military sexual violence against women that hasn't really been addressed, says Jelke Boesten of King's College London, who has spent years researching gender-based violence in Peru. Sponsor Message In Peru, domestic violence against women was a longstanding problem before the pandemic, with 5 women and girls reported missing each day on average, according to the Ombudsman's office. This pandemic has exposed "another emergency that's been made invisible for decades, and that's the emergency women live inside their own homes, with multiple forms of violence," says Soto.