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United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child - States Parties Reports |
UNITED
NATIONS |
CRC |
||
Convention on the
Rights of the Child |
Distr.
GENERAL
CRC/C/125/Add.6
24 May 2005
ENGLISH
Original: SPANISH
|
COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE
CHILD
CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES
PARTIES
UNDER ARTICLE 44 OF THE CONVENTION
Third
periodic reports of States parties due in 2004
PERU*
**
[28 January 2004]
* For the second report submitted by the Government of Peru,
see document CRC/C/65/Add.8. For its consideration by the Committee
on 21
January 2000, see documents CRC/C/SR.605 and 606 and
CRC/C/15/Add.120.
** In accordance with the information transmitted to
States parties concerning the processing of their reports, the present document
was not formally edited before being sent to the United Nations translation
services.
GE 05-42009 (EXT)
CONTENTS
Paragraphs Page
Acronyms 4
INTRODUCTION 1
– 2 5
I. SITUATION AND PROSPECTS 3 – 51 5
A. Socio - demographic indicators and living standards 13 – 25 8
B. Sustained economic growth and regional development 26 – 34 11
C. Education 35 – 43 13
D. Health 44 – 51 14
II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE NATIONAL PLAN OF ACTION FOR
CHILDREN AND
ADOLESCENTS 2002 - 2010 52 – 66 15
A. Guiding principles of the PNAI 57 – 66 17
1. Equal opportunities for all 57 – 66 17
2. Priority for children as subjects of rights and the
foundation of
development 59 – 61 17
3. The best interests of the child and the right to participate 62 – 63 17
4. The family as the fundamental institution for the
development of the
human person 64 – 66 17
III. CURRENT SITUATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD 67 – 218 20
A. Exclusion at an early age 68 – 70 20
B. Development in early childhood (0 - 5 years) 71 – 107 21
1. The beginning of life 73 – 86 21
2. Nutrition 87 – 98 25
3. Initial education 99 – 102 27
4. The right to a name 103 – 107 29
C. Children and primary school (6 - 11 years) 108 – 122 30
1. School attendance and learning 109 – 115 30
2. Education of rural girls 116 – 122 31
D. Adolescents (12 - 17 years) 123 – 143 32
1. Access to education and health services 126 – 129 33
2. Opportunities for participation by adolescents 130 – 131 34
3. Sex and reproduction counselling 132 – 136 34
4. Addictive behaviour and drug abuse 137 –
143 35
Paragraphs Page
E. Rights for the whole of childhood 144 – 204 37
1. Children in need of special protection 144 – 192 37
2. The right to participate 193 – 194 50
3. The children’s ombudsmen 195 – 204 51
F. Special legislation and justice 205 – 218 55
1. Progress in the incorporation of international treaties
into
national law 205 – 206 55
2. The Children’s and Adolescents’ Code 207 – 209 57
3. Juvenile offenders 210 – 215 58
4. Gang violence 216 – 218 59
IV. MATRIX OF THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD INCORPORATED WITH THE
PNAI 2002 -
2010 219 – 221 59
V. CONCLUSIONS 222 – 229 95
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
CONADIS National Council for the Integration of Disabled Persons
CONAM National Environmental Council
CONFIEP Intersectoral Confederation of Private Enterprises
CONTRADROGAS Commission to Combat Drug Use
COOPOP Office for Grass-roots Cooperation
DEVIDA National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs
ENAHO National Household Survey
ENNIV National Survey for the Measurement of Living Standards
FONCODES National Compensation and Development Fund
INABIF National Family Welfare Institute
INEI National Institute for Statistics and Information
INS National Health Institute
MCLPC Forums against Poverty
MEF Ministry of the Economy and Finance
MIMDES Ministry for Women and Social Development
MINEDU Ministry of Education
MINJUS Ministry of Justice
MINSA Ministry of Health
MTPE Ministry of Labour and Employment
NGO Non-governmental organization
PAHO Pan-American Health Organization
PAR Programme of Support for the Resettlement and Development of Emergency Zones
PATPAL Parque de las Leyendas Board
PNCVFS National Programme to Combat Domestic and Sexual Violence
PROMUDEH Ministry for the Advancement of Women and Human Development
PRONAA National Food Aid Programme
RENIEC National Register of Identity and Civil Status
INTRODUCTION
1. This third national report has been prepared pursuant to article 44 of
the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It seeks to
show the present
situation and the progress made in the exercise of the rights recognized in the
Convention.
2. Attention must be drawn to the inclusion in the report of
the National Plan of Action for Children and Adolescents 2002-2010
(PNAI),[*] the start-up of
which constitutes the most important challenge for the effective exercise of
rights and for sustainable development
in Peru.
I. SITUATION AND PROSPECTS
3. In an analysis of the application of the Convention it is first
necessary to describe the political and legal situation in Peru
in the 1990s.
From the social point of view that decade was characterized by the corruption of
the Government, the break-down of
the institutions of society, and excessive
authoritarianism on the part of the Executive. In legal terms there was a
crisis of the
rule of law, a loss of confidence in the Judiciary, and want of a
culture of legality in all the sectors of society.
4. Furthermore, the
violation of fundamental rights was characteristic of a situation which Peru is
still trying to understand today.
5. The moral crisis must be singled out
as a fundamental problem (one which inevitably undermined the country’s
institutions).
Accordingly, if one feature characterized the 1990s it was the
culture of corruption.
6. In November 2000 Dr. Valentín Paniagua
assumed office as President of the Republic and took up the great challenge of
reconstructing,
with his transitional Government, a Peruvian State in which
respect for human rights, consolidation of the institutions of society,
and
reorganization of the structure of power would be the principal governmental
policies.
7. Later, the Government of Dr. Alejandro Toledo took over the
task of rebuilding the State through the democratization of power,
decentralization of State control, and unrestricted respect for human
rights.
8. Against this background the Government has been carrying out
national policies to solve the problems described above. Accordingly,
the fight
against extreme poverty is becoming a basic focus of the State’s action in
terms of the priority given to measures
to help the poorest people and to build
and develop capacities.
9. The Government has also given priority to
promoting negotiation as a mechanism of dialogue. In this connection it signed
the National
Accord on State Policies, an unprecedented arrangement in
Peru’s history, under which the different social and political forces
have
undertaken to work for the success of the proposals contained in that document.
These proposals include various measures for
the benefit of
children,[1] such as:
10. As already pointed out, one of the most
important challenges facing Peruvian society and the entire political class
today is to
restore the country to full governability in order to facilitate the
strengthening of democracy and the construction of a collective
future of
prosperity and social justice.
11. The common approach to be built by
joint efforts can be described in terms of the following convergent and
interdependent paths:
(a) First, to ensure the effective delivery of human rights in general by establishing public policies for the comprehensive protection of children in particular. This will require the components of society and the State to harmonize their efforts in a joint approach in which respect for the equality of human beings is the basis for mutually supportive, efficient and sustainable social development;
(b) Second, to secure the sustained economic growth and genuine
development of the regions to facilitate a geographical redistribution of the
production of goods and of access to them; this will be sought chiefly by means
of decentralization of decision-making as the basis
for true democracy, so that
the peoples of Peru will cease to be passive actors and become protagonists of
their destiny and
history;[2]
(c) Third, to make substantial changes in the structure, functions and management of the State as fundamental steps in the process of placing the State in the service of society and thus making it into a powerful tool of equity;
(d) Fourth, to implement a social development policy in which the State ceases to produce programmes weighed down with a social-assistance approach and instead promotes the development of human capacities, so that the nation’s social capital becomes the foundation of its authentic growth;
(e) Fifth, to drive forward the historical process of the nation’s acknowledgement of the facts of the violations of human rights in the 1980s and 1990s; the Truth Commission was established for this purpose;[3]
(f) Sixth, to consolidate the National System for the Comprehensive Care of Children and Adolescents through the National Plan of Action for Children and Adolescents 2000-2010 (PNAI) and the strengthening of the Ministry for Women and Social Development (MIMDES) as the System’s lead agency;
(g) Seventh, to build an ethical society founded on the quest for the
good, in which solidarity is the natural kind of relationship between Peruvians,
with a view to the gradual creation of a culture of mutual
respect.
12. It would be idle to think of building authentic democracy
and social justice and a State devoted to the service of the people
unless they
are to be founded on the values of justice, the common good and
solidarity.
A. Socio-demographic indicators and living standards
13. In general terms, recent years have seen advances in the most
important social indicators, but they have been insufficient and
fragmented and
below the Latin American averages.
14. Peru’s estimated
population[4] for the current
year is 26,749,00, with an annual growth rate of 1.5 per cent. Of this total,
72 per cent live in urban areas and
28 per cent in rural areas, defined as
settlements having fewer than 100 dwellings grouped together. Fifty-one per
cent of the population
lives at the coast, 35 per cent in the mountains, and 14
per cent in the forest.
15. Of Peru’s total population, 54.8 per
cent (14,609,000
inhabitants)[5] live in poverty
and 24.4 per cent (6,513,000) in extreme poverty.
Population of Peru 2001-2002
(thousands)
1.53 %
annual
rate
Daily growth rate = 1,101
persons
Source: INEI
Poverty rates, 2001[6]
(percentages)
Areas
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Total poverty
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Extreme poverty
|
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National areas
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54.8
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24.4
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Áreas
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|
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Urban
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42.0
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9.9
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Rural
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78.4
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51.3
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Natural regions
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Coast
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39.3
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5.8
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Mountains
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72.0
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45.6
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Forest
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68.7
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39.7
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Domains
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Urban coast
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44.6
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7.6
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Rural coast
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62.7
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19.7
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Urban mountains
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51.6
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18.3
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Rural mountains
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83.4
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60.8
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Urban forest
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62.4
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34.9
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Rural forest
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74.0
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43.7
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Metropolitan Lima
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31.9
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2.3
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16. In 2001 total poverty was up by 1.4 per cent over 2000 and by 7.1 per
cent over 1997. Similarly, extreme poverty in 2001 was
4.5 per cent higher than
2000 and 1.3 per cent higher than in
1997.[7]
17. The
difference between the current estimate of the poverty rate of 54.8 per cent and
the 48.4 per cent published for 2000 (6.4
points) is due to the combined effect
of methodological improvements (5 points) and the increase in the rate itself
(1.4 points).
The growth of extreme poverty between 2000 and 2001 from 15 to
24.4 per cent (9.4 points) is due to methodological improvements
(4.9 points)
and the increase in the rate itself (4.5
points).[8]
18. The
following information is available on employment in
Peru:
Peru: Employed population aged six years and older, by age group (thousands)[9]
Sex and age
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Total EAP
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EAP
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Employed
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Unemployed
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Male
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7 273
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6 913
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360
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6-14 years
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675
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670
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5
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15-64 years
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6 183
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5 842
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341
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65 and older
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414
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400
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14
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Women
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5 532
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5 261
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271
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6-14 years
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545
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543
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2
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15-64 years
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4 764
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4 498
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266
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65 and older
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224
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221
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3
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Total
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12 806
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12 174
|
631
|
Life expectancy at birth: urban and rural,
2002
72.0
Rural
Urban
Total
64.8
69.7
Source: INEI. Population Estimates and Projections
1950-2050.
19. The problems of health, education and protection
affecting large numbers of children are related to their “risk
conditions",
which are defined as circumstances affecting the population’s
well-being over which individuals have little direct control.
The following are
the primary risk conditions among Peru’s child population: economic
poverty, lack of regular paid work for
families, and the socio-economic
deterioration of living conditions. There are other factors of vulnerability
and exclusion affecting
broad social sectors related to age and sex and
geography and ethnic group which exacerbate the risk conditions.
20. It
has been established that 72 per cent of households obtain their water supply
from the public network. Only 46 per cent of
rural households enjoy this
service. In contrast, 88 per cent of urban households (almost double the
number) obtain their water
from the public
network.[10]
21. In
urban areas 76 per cent of households have access to a public sewage-disposal
service. In rural areas 52 per cent of households
have no service of this kind.
In the department of Huancavelica 71 per cent of the population has no sewage
disposal
service.[11]
22. Life
expectancy at birth was 69.7 years between 1995 and 2002; it is expected to
increase to 74.8 years for the five-year period
2020-2025. However, the figure
is lower in many departments: in Huancavelica, for example, it is 56.8 years and
in Cusco 60.2.
In other departments the figure is higher than the national
average. In Lima, for example, it is 76.8 years, in Tacna 72.8, and
in Arequipa
71.9.[12]
23. Rural
areas have 23,000 primary schools: 68 per cent of them have no piped warer, 95
per cent no sewage-disposal service, and
90 per cent no electricity supply; only
three per cent have a library, and fewer than one per cent a laboratory. In
rural areas
90 per cent of primary teaching is conducted in single-teacher
schools (one teacher for several different grades) or in schools with
multi-grade classes (several grades in a single classroom).
24. The
migration from the interior of the country to the coast and from the countryside
to the towns over the last 60 years has caused
serious distortions in the land,
population and economic balance; this in turn has given rise to other problems:
as population leaves
a department it causes the departmental GDP to fall,
generating more poverty which in turn drives out more population and thus causes
constant disruption of this balance. “This vicious circle is worse than
it appears, for 80 per cent of the migrants are aged
under 34; this means that
the migration is chiefly of young members of the EAP and women of childbearing
age. Departments losing
population, such as Ancash, Ayacucho and Huancavelica,
have been experiencing negative GDP growth rates for some three
decades.”[13]
25. One
of the most significant indicators of centralization is the increasing share of
the department of Lima in the generation of
national GDP (currently about 50 per
cent), while the contribution of the other departments, with some exceptions, is
tending to
decline. This is because the process of migration has always been
accompanied by a decrease in the production of goods in most of
the
country’s departments, with a consequent upward trend in poverty in rural
areas.
B. Sustained economic growth and regional
development[14]
26. Despite
the enormous volume of national and international resources allocated to poverty
alleviation, one in two Peruvians remains
poor today. The Ministry for Women
and Social Development (MIMDES) was created recently in order to tackle this
situation; it is
to operate on the basis of a number of fundamental guiding
principles.
27. These principles include: support for the efforts of
families to build up their capacities and take advantage of opportunities
for
advancement; recognition of Peru’s peoples and culture as an enormous
reserve of social capital and the main engines of
the country’s history;
and the bid for good governance and decentralization, which will require
delivery on the social commitments
contained in the National
Accord.
28. MIMDES will be responsible for coordinating the social policies
for children, taking as its focus the PNAI, approved by Supreme
Resolution in
May, as a framework document for the country’s long-term policies for
children.
ORGANIGRAM OF THE MINISTRY FOR WOMEN AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
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Office of the Deputy Minister for Social Development
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Department for the Advancement of Women
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Department for Children and Adolescents
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Department for the Elderly
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Department for Social Investment
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Department for Decentalization, Negotiation and
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National Secretariat for Adoptions
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CONADIS
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Decentralized public bodies
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Subsidiary bodies
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INABIF: National Family Welfare Institute
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SNA: National Secretariat for Adoptions
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PRONAA: National Food Aid Programme
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Sectoral coordination committees at the regional level
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PAR: Programme of Support for the Resettlement and Development of Emergency
Zones
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National programmes
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CONADES: National Council for Integration of Disabled Persons
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PNWW: National Wawa Wasi Programme
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PATPAL: Parque de las Leyendas Board
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PNCVFS: National Programme to Combat Domestic and Sexual Violence
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FONCODES: National Compensation and Social Development Fund
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Act No. 27793: MIMDES (Organization and Functions) Act
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29. The next local and regional government elections will determine who are
the authentic representatives and leaders of each district,
province and region,
and they will introduce a unique social change, for elected representatives will
henceforth take the decisions
affecting their own destiny. The social impact of
this process will alter the situation of the forgotten Peruvians, especially of
children.
30. Decentralization will restructure Peru. But in order to
speed up this process Peru will have to take a decision to change the
forms of
the relations among its inhabitants; in this connection the quest for dialogue
and encounter and the rejection of violence
is a commitment of all
Peruvians.
31. Efforts are currently being made to manage an orderly and
gradual process of decentralization, in which spheres of competence
are clearly
defined and foster transparent and predictable decisions. This will make it
possible not only to avoid duplication of
functions but also to ensure the
assignment of responsibilities and accountability to the appropriate level of
government.
32. The Peruvian State will place special emphasis on
improving the efficiency of the social programmes and boosting productivity
in
the use of public resources. In order to attain this goal, the ministries
responsible for social programmes, such as the ministry
in question here, will
continue to combine their approaches and programmes with a view to reducing
extreme poverty.
33. One part of public expenditure will be
results-based, with clearly established spheres of competence and
responsibilities; this
will release resources to increase social spending. The
medium-term aim is for social spending, currently standing at eight per
cent of
GDP, to rise to over 10 per cent, with priority given to nutrition, health,
education, justice, housing and public security.
34. The ultimate goal of
economic policy is to achieve sustained growth and maintain low inflation and
the consistent international
reserves position which Peru now has, with a
sustainable external balance of payments and prudent levels of internal and
external
debt. Maintenance of this stability is one of the best means of
attracting investment and generating the decent jobs which Peruvians
need.
C.
Education[15]
35. Education
is one of the keys to the development of the country as a whole. Accordingly,
the national education process must understand
education as a social action
which is a responsibility of the entire community and, that being the case,
proclaim its vocation of
promoting increased participation by society without
ceasing to underline the lead role of the State.
36. The Peruvian State
reaffirms its determination to make education into a fundamental axis of
national development within the context
of the National Accord, the proposals
resulting from the National Consultation on Education, and the Outline of
Education Policy
2002-2006, in order to accelerate the start-up of the national
education project.
37. One of the main challenges for education is to build,
from childhood, a citizenry imbued with a culture of solidarity and
democracy.
38. In addition, the education policy is designed to establish
a close relationship between the education system and the system of
national
production and to boost the nation’s scientific and technological
skills.
39. The decision to improve the quality of education posits three
lines of action: provision of education of quality and equity; priority
for the
sectors with the biggest deficits; and decentralization of education to support
regional development, with emphasis on the
fight against poverty.
40. The
education system’s most serious problem is the children who do not enrol
in school and those who drop out, phenomena
found chiefly in rural areas. The
Rural Education and Development Programme, to be implemented over a period of 10
years, will be
introduced as a means of correcting this situation. It is
currently in the final stage of negotiation with the World Bank; over
the next
four years it will help to increase the access of rural children to education.
Implementation of the pilot plan has already
begun in rural areas of Cusco,
Piura and San Martín.
41. Peru still has more than two million
persons aged over 15 who can neither read nor write; this problem is being
tackled at its
roots by expanding primary education and strengthening rural
education.
42. The Huascarán programme, a measure to facilitate
access to global information, is already available to 500,000 pupils and
in 2005
it will attain the target of 2.2 million users.
Bilingual and
cross-cultural education
43. Given Peru’s great linguistic and
cultural diversity, education of quality and equity calls for measures with a
bilingual
and cross-cultural approach; a languages policy is therefore being
promoted as a means of building a new policy of cultures in a
context of
decentralization. This policy is designed to make people more aware of the
country’s diversity of languages, knowledge,
and cultural and
technological heritage with a view to incorporating these assets as an
educational resource with the potential to
boost development. Educational
materials will be produced for this purpose in Quechua, Aimara, Aguaruna,
Shipibo and other tongues,
the training of bilingual cross-cultural teachers
will be continued, and use will be made of modern technology to improve the
teaching
in bilingual and cross-cultural settings.
D.
Health[16]
44. The
Outline of Sectoral Policy for the period 2002-2012 and the Strategic Sectoral
Plan for the five-year period from August 2001
to July 2006 establish the
mission as the protection of personal dignity, the promotion of good health, the
prevention of diseases,
and the comprehensive health care of all Peruvians.
This will require a health promotion model which incorporates the democratic
dialogue with greater force and political determination in the sector’s
relations with the people.
45. This promotion model will have as its central
aim the reassessment of comprehensive health care; this implies giving increased
attention to the social and preventive aspects of health care. The Health
Ministry Act created for this purpose the Health Promotion Department as the
line agency and technical and standard-setting body in this area.
46. The
sector’s policy seeks to increase access to the health services and
prevent the neglect of families stricken by very
serious health problems. In
this connection, the Comprehensive Health Insurance Agency, which has been in
operation since January
of this year, has so far provided cover for more than
3.5 million persons, 56 per cent of the 2001 target coverage of 6.3 million
persons.
47. The Peruvian State, in affirmation of its commitment to the
extremely poor members of the population, will continue to promote
universal
access to health care by consolidating a model of universal and sustainable
equitable mutual insurance, which 8.2 million
persons are expected to have taken
out by the end of 2003. It has also set a target for 2006 of affiliation of 100
per cent of the
people living in poverty or extreme poverty.
48. A start
has been made on transferring all the supplementary food programmes run by the
Health Ministry to the National Food Aid
Programme (PRONAA) in order to avoid
duplication of the measures aimed at one and the same target population. One
measure carried
out in the first half of 2002 was to supply 354 million food
rations to a total of 2.4 million recipients, for a total investment
of 65
million dollars.
49. Improvements over 2001 are projected in the
population’s health through measures carried out in the areas of mother
and
child health, the fight against emergent and re-emergent diseases, health
promotion, disease prevention, provision of services, and
support for the
equipment of the general services of 23 hospitals.
50. These improvements
include the reduction of tuberculosis by 13 per cent, malaria by one per cent,
and dengue by 44 per cent, as
well as reductions in the incidence of acute
diarrhoea by nine per cent and pneumonia by 18 per cent and a decrease of six
per cent
in the maternal mortality rate.
51. Action will be taken to
strengthen health promotion and the prevention and control of transmissible
diseases and chronic degenerative
conditions through the epidemiological
monitoring system, with a view to controlling transmissible diseases which are
widespread
at the regional and national levels. The targets set for 2006 are to
reduce cases of tuberculosis by 20 per cent and of malaria,
dengue and yellow
fever by 40 per cent and to reduce the number of deaths caused by acute
respiratory infections and acute diarrhoea
by 30 per cent.
II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE NATIONAL PLAN OF
ACTION
FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS 2002-2010
52. The National Action Plan for Children and Adolescents 2002-2010
(PNAI) was designed in the light of the principles set out in
the Convention on
the Rights of the Child, the country’s existing legal framework, the
current directions of public policy,
and the consensus reached by the
participants in the ad hoc consultation, which are in broad agreement on the
need to provide equality
of opportunities for all of Peru’s children in
order to eliminate the disparities by means of a national effort stretching
over
10 years.
53. The strengthening of public institutions, understood as the
outcome of the pooling of efforts by the State and civil society,
the
reconciliation and social monitoring of rights with a view to transparency in
the management of public affairs and shared responsibility
in decision-making,
and the focusing of measures on excluded groups and regions are the general
strategies designed to contribute,
through the measures taken under the PNAI, to
the elimination of the disparities within a generation.
54. A
rights-based approach was taken in the preparation of the PNAI, an approach
which requires people to recognize children’s
needs as rights which may be
asserted and which form part of their human rights and thus require urgent
attention.
55. The design of the PNAI also included a phased approach
which, while making it possible to deal comprehensively with the daily
lives of
individuals, also facilitates an understanding and a valid response to every
stage in the lives of children. This phased
approach is put into effect in the
“life line” (línea de vida) methodological strategy,
which makes it possible to understand and embrace the many different factors
affecting the development
of every child, factors which acquire special
relevance at specific stages or moments in their lives.
56. The PNAI is
described in the following figure:
PERU: NATIONAL PLAN OF ACTION FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
2002-2010
A. Guiding principles
of the PNAI
1. Equal opportunities for all
57. All children are born
free and equal and have the same personal worth and the same rights. All forms
of exclusion and discrimination
which impair equality must be
eliminated.
58. Diversity must be respected, and the country must be seen
as a mosaic of cultures in which only respect for these cultures and
collaboration among them will make it possible to build a Peru offering equal
opportunities for all without any discrimination in
respect of sex, age, ethnic
origin or religion or discrimination of any other kind.
2. Priority
for children as subjects of rights and the foundation of
development
59. Priority investment in children will help to prevent
poverty and break the circle of poverty reproduction. The PNAI seeks to
achieve
this in a single generation, in the conviction that investment in children will
render the development efforts sustainable.
60. This will mean setting
long-term national priorities: provision of quality education for all children;
elimination of violence
against children and their exploitation; and promotion
of their comprehensive health, security and nutrition throughout their
lives.
61. It is important for these priorities to be accorded to
children by all social actors in the form of a communication strategy for
the
defence and promotion of rights which includes the mobilization and civic
participation in democracy of children, young people
and adults of all
ages.
3. The best interests of the child
62. All the
initiatives taken by the State, civil society and the family must give priority
to those measures which best favour children’s
comprehensive development.
The establishment of the best possible foundations for their present and future
lives will strengthen
society and the family.
63. Listening to children
and encouraging them to participate will help them to grow up into citizens
aware of their rights and duties.
People must respect children’s right to
express their opinions, form associations and have a say in the adoption of
decisions
affecting them.
4. The family as the fundamental institution
for the development of the human person
64. Coordinated intervention
by the different State sectors and by civil society will help to consolidate the
family, whose influence
will in turn will contribute to children’s
comprehensive development and well-being.
65. The family space should be
reassessed as the primary training and socializing influence, which transmits to
children values, correct
behaviour, knowledge and social and cultural
traditions.
66. The PNAI puts forward the following propositions:
Vision
Peru’s children have equality of opportunities and access to
quality services and they have a part to play in the exercise,
promotion and
defence of their rights in conjunction with State agencies, communities and
civil society in general, as well as developing
to the full within their
families in a healthy environment free of violence.
Mission
To strengthen the capacities of the State, civil society, the family, and
children themselves to devise and carry out measures to
ensure the exercise of
their rights, within a framework of democratic values in which children are
priorities on the national agenda
General objectives
Development objectives based on the principles of the Convention on the
Rights of the Child
Strategies
(i) Capacity-building for public institutions
(ii) Promoting the
reconciliation and social monitoring of rights
(iii) Targeting the measures on the most
excluded groups with specific needs
Strategic objectives
These are the desired impacts on children in terms of the exercise of their rights and they represent the changes in the situation and status of children to be achieved in the long term; they are interdependent and essential to the exercise of these rights. They have been grouped according to the stages of the life cycle from birth to 17 years of age.
The following are the strategic objectives to be attained by 2010:
Strategic objective 1: To
guarantee children good health from birth to age 5
Outcomes by
2010
1. Healthy and safe maternity and childbirth.
2. Exercise of
the right to a name and identity by all children.
3. All under-twos to have
access to breast-feeding and the best supplementary foods.
4. Attention to
children's special needs in terms of prevention, diagnosis, intervention and
rehabilitation.
5. Garanteed conditions for children to exercise the right
to life.
6. Improvement of children's intake of micronutrients.
7.
Comprehensive child development from an early age.
Target
population
Children from birth to age 5.
Women of childbearing age
(15-46 years).
General objectives
1. To contribute to children’s exercise of their rights and discharge
of their responsibilities, within the framework of the
law, in a democratic
country in which human rights are respected;
2. To create the conditions in
the State and in civil society which will foster the human development of all
children and reduce
the poverty and exclusion affecting them, throughout their
lives.
Strategic objective 2: To provide quality basic education
for all children aged six to 11
Outcomes by 2010
8.
Provision of quality cross-cultural basic education for all children.
9.
Eradication of the worst forms of child labour and promotion of educational
alternatives to such labour.
Target population: Children aged six
to 11.
Strategic objective 3: To create spaces for participation by children
aged 12 to 17 and to promote their comprehensive development
Outcomes to be attained by 2010
10. Quality secondary
education;
11. Reduction of the teenage pregnancy rate;
12. Reduction of
sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS among adolescents;
14.
Prevention and reduction of adolescent violence;
15. Reduction of the
consumption of legal and illegal drugs by adolescents;
16. Creation of
conditions to encourage and secure participation by all
children.
Target population: Adolescents aged 12 to 17
Strategic objective 4: To introduce a system of guarantees for the
protection of the rights of children from birth to age 17
Outcomes to
be attained by 2010:
17. Consolidation of a legal order and special
system for the administration of juvenile justice;
18. Creation of an
infrastructure and services responsive to the needs and culture of all children,
with priority for children with
specific needs;
19. Establishment of
reliable systems for providing timely information about children;
20.
Provision of care for children in emergency situations;
21. Reduction of
the sexual exploitation of children;
22. Reduction of maltreatment and
elimination of sexual abuse of children.
Target population:
Children from birth to age 17
III. CURRENT SITUATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
67. The problems of childhood in a multicultural country with great
social disparities are not the same for all. However, it is possible
to come to
grips with this diversity and determine who are the most excluded children and
where they are to be found. The phased
approach makes it possible to observe
these problems at all stages, from conception and pregnancy to the child’s
birth and
physical and mental development up to age 17. This approach, which is
the one taken here, covers children’s relations with
culture, family,
school, peers and community.
A. Exclusion at an early age
68. Peru is a young country with a large poor population consisting
chiefly of children. It has a total of 10,617,000 children aged
under 18 (40
per cent of the total population in 2001), whose needs constitute rights which
must be protected by the State, civil
society and the
family.[17]
69. As
pointed out earlier, 54.8 per cent of the country’s population live in
poverty and 24.4 per cent in extreme poverty.
Moreover, 40.4 per cent of the
members of poor households are aged under
15.[18] In other words, in
terms of distribution by age children are the most excluded members of Peruvian
society and therefore the most
vulnerable and exposed to the most
risks.
70. The degrees of exclusion vary by culture and geographical
region, and indigenous children in rural forest and mountain areas and
children
living in marginal urban zones in the main cities have been identified as the
most seriously affected. The situation of
children shows the following internal
disparities:
Social disparities among children
Indicator
|
National average
|
Extremes
|
|
Better
|
Worse
|
||
Infant mortality rate (per 1,000 live
births)[19]
|
33,0
|
Lima: 20
|
Huancavelica: 84
|
Total fertility rate[20]
|
3,5
|
Tacna: 2,0
|
Huancavelica: 6,0
|
Overall percentage of chronic malnutrition among
under-fives[21]
|
25,4
|
Tacna: 5,4
|
Huancavelica: 53,4
|
Percentage of births attended by trained
personnel[22]
|
59,0
|
Lima: 91,0
|
Huancavelica: 21,0
|
Illiteracy rate*
|
7,7
|
Tumbes: 1,9
|
Apurímac: 14,4
|
School grades completed by age 17*
|
8,7
|
Lima: 9,8
|
Cajamarca: 6,8
|
Percentage of children aged 15-17 who cannot read
or write* |
3,8
|
Lima: 1,1
|
Provinces of Pacitea and Huánuco: 28
|
* Taken from La Exclusión Social en el Perú (Social Exclusion in Peru). UNICEF, June 2001.
B. Development in early childhood (0-5 years)
71. It is established that children’s health, nutrition and various
abilities begin to develop in their mother’s womb.
Hence the importance
of caring for mothers and guaranteeing children a good start in life, for what
happens to them at this stage
has an impact throughout their lives. The
right to life and to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of
children are established in articles 6 and 24 of the Convention on the
Rights of the Child. This section of the report contains an analysis
of the
situation of this group of rights, beginning with maternal and perinatal health
and infant mortality and ending with nutrition
and the stimulation of
development.
72. The country’s current epidemiological profile
reflects the diversity of its living standards and life styles, revealing
a
mosaic of problems ranging from maternal mortality associated with pregnancy and
childbirth in rural areas to the increased incidence
of accidents, injuries and
violent deaths from various causes in urban areas. The maternal and perinatal
health figures are sufficient
indicators of the disparity in this field between
the country’s towns and its poorest and most remote
areas.
1. The beginning of life
Pregnancy and
childbirth
73. For mothers and children in rural areas, especially in
the mountain and forest regions, a healthy delivery in good conditions
is still
an unattained right. The lack of access to health services having the capacity
to take independent decisions and equipped
with obstetric facilities and the
scant cultural acceptance of childbirth attended by trained personnel are two of
the underlying
causes of this problem.
74. Peru has one of the highest
maternal mortality rates in Latin America. This rate stood at 185 per 100,000
live births in 2000[23] and
remains a public health problem which impairs equality of opportunity with
respect to the right to life. Most of the deaths
are connected with problems
during pregnancy and inadequate care during childbirth and the perinatal period,
for largely avoidable
causes. Added to these factors are the women’s age
and level of education, the spacing of births and the women’s health
and
nutritional status.
75. The presence of anaemia in pregnant women leads
to insufficient oxygenization of the foetus and may cause perinatal death due
to
hypoxia; and among women with moderate anaemia there is an association with the
presence of anaemia in their babies. A total
of 36 per cent of Peru’s
women of childbearing age suffer from some degree of anaemia; in rural areas the
figure is 41 per
cent (ENDES-1966).
Figures on the state of maternal and perinatal health in
Peru,
1996-2000 [24]
|
1996
|
2000
|
Maternal mortality rate (per 100,000 live births)
|
|
|
National average
|
265
|
185
|
Puno and Amazonas
|
|
+ 300
|
Lima
|
|
- 50
|
Coverage of antenatal care (%)(at least one check)
|
|
|
National average
|
60
|
77
|
Extremes: Huánaco
|
|
66
|
Lima
|
|
96
|
Childbirth in an institution (%)
|
|
|
National average
|
49,5
|
58
|
Extremes: Huancavelica
|
|
19
|
Lima
|
|
94
|
76. In order to increase the coverage of care for pregnant women and
new-born babies in the rural areas of the Andes and the Amazon
it is regarded as
essential to improve the population’s level of information about
self-care and the nature of the available maternity services and the quality
and cultural relevance of these services and to ensure correct treatment by
health personnel.
Infant mortality
77. Peru still has one
of the region’s highest infant mortality rates, despite the fact that
between 1991 and 2000 it managed
to reduce the national rate from 52 to 33 per
1,000 live births;[25] this
rate is made up chiefly of neonatal deaths due to causes associated with
delivery and the perinatal period.
78. However, this reduction in the
infant mortality rate between 1996 and 2000 occurred in the population groups
with the greatest
resources (fourth and fifth quintiles); the rate rose in the
poorest groups (second
quintile).[26]
79. As in other countries, in Peru infant mortality is associated with
the mother’s age and education, the order of birth of
her children, and
the spacing of her pregnancies. The following
table[27] gives figures on
this point.
|
Childbirth year 1996
|
Childbirth year 2000
|
Mother’s level of education
|
||
Primary
|
62
|
54
|
Secondary
|
32
|
30
|
No education
|
79
|
73
|
Higher
|
26
|
20
|
Age at delivery
|
||
20 - 29
|
43
|
40
|
30 - 39
|
54
|
41
|
40 - 49
|
81
|
80
|
Under 20
|
59
|
52
|
80. For the adolescent-mother age group the mortality rate among babies
aged under 12 months is currently 52 per 1,000 live births;
the perinatal
mortality rate among women aged 40-49 at the time of delivery is particularly
high (47 per 1,000) compared with other
age groups, especially the 20-29 group
(18 per 1,000).[28]
81. By
place of residence, the highest levels of perinatal mortality are found among
women living in the departments of Pasco and
Cusco, with rates of 40 and 48
perinatal deaths respectively for every thousand pregnancies lasting seven or
more
months.[29]
82. Some
information illustrating the main features of this problem is given
below.
Infant
mortality[30]
|
83. An analysis of the causes of infant deaths in Peru shows that
thousands of them are still occurring for avoidable reasons. The
annual total
of such deaths was estimated to exceed 19,000 in 2000, with 8,000 babies dying
during the first week of life and more
than half (55%) during the first month;
this latter proportion has remained the same for two decades and points to the
need to increase
the number of deliveries attended and new-born babies cared for
in an institution, especially in rural mountain and forest
areas.[31]
84. The
perinatal infant mortality rate is 23 per 1,000 pregnancies lasting seven months
or longer32, with a similar number of stillbirths or early
neonatal deaths.
85. Other causes of infant mortality are acute
respiratory infections, traumatism, diarrhoea, and malnutrition. The following
table
shows the success achieved in the control of immuno-preventible diseases
affecting infant mortality.
Immunization coverage, 1992-2000 (%)
Year
|
Measles
|
Triple (DPT)
|
Poliomyelitis
|
Tuberculosis (BCG)
|
1992
|
83.3
|
82.9
|
84.6
|
85.2
|
1993
|
76.2
|
86.9
|
87.8
|
88.5
|
1994
|
75.1
|
87.4
|
87.4
|
92.1
|
1995
|
98.9
|
94.8
|
92.9
|
96.2
|
1996
|
86.6
|
100.5
|
100.6
|
96.9
|
1997
|
91.9
|
98.6
|
97.0
|
98.5
|
1998
|
94.5
|
99.6
|
98.6
|
96.2
|
1999
|
92.5
|
98.9
|
95.9
|
97.0
|
2000
|
97.2
|
97.7
|
93.1
|
93.2
|
Source: MINSA, Office of Statistics and Information.
86. The
Comprehensive Health Insurance Agency was established recently (January 2002)
as a financial mechanism of the Ministry of
Health (MINSA) in order to help to
reduce maternal and infant mortality and to provide access to health care for
all pregnant women
and for all children aged under four years, including the
cost of medicines, treatment in hospital, diagnostic examinations, and
medical
materials. The Agency’s intention is to provide free care for the poorest
families.
2. Nutrition
Breastfeeding[3]3
87. Breastfeeding
is a widespread practice in Peru: 98 per cent of the babies born in the five
years preceding ENDES-2000 had been
breastfed to some extent. Fifty-four per
cent of babies were breastfeeding within an hour of birth.
88. In 2000
some 58 per cent of babies were exclusively breastfed up to the age of six
months (19 per cent more than in 1996), and
there was an increase in the average
duration of exclusive breastfeeding from 2.7 months in 1996 to 4.2 months in
2000. This increase
was due to the effort made to mobilize resources and the
implementation of institutionalized strategies and measures by MINSA. However,
exclusive breastfeeding remains under threat from cultural practices: the
introduction of liquids and other diluted foods such as
soups, broths and
infusions of little nutritional content.
89. Supplementary feeding of
under-twos (during weaning) is usually insufficient in quantity, quality and
frequency; this is a problem
requiring priority attention, for it has an impact
on a child’s nutritional state at a critical time when most of the
development
of the nervous system is completed.
90. It is recognized that
this problem and other child-nutrition problems call for improved training and
further training by the personnel
of the various health
facilities.
Micronutrients[34]
91. Consumer
surveys indicate that 58 per cent of under-twos do not take in enough energy.
They also indicate that 67 per cent of
them consume insufficient vitamin A and
42 per cent insufficient iron. These deficits are even greater in rural forest
areas, where
77 per cent take in insufficient energy, 81 per cent insufficient
vitamin A, and 81 per cent insufficient iron.
92. In the case of
vitamin-A intake, in 1999 MINSA, with PAHO and UNICEF support, introduced the
provision of supplements in the areas
of greatest risk with high rates of infant
mortality, unsatisfied basic needs, and illiteracy.
93. Anaemia,
associated with a low intake of iron, is very widespread in Peru. In 2000,
70 per cent of under-twos suffered from some
degree of anaemia, most of the
cases occurring among children living in the mountains (56%) and in the
country’s other rural
areas (53%). Anaemia affects 71 per cent of
under-fives in Cusco and more than 62 per cent in the departments of Tacna and
Puno.
94. In the case of disorders due to iodine deficiency Peru achieved
the target of universal iodization of salt for human consumption.
The
international agencies certified the virtual elimination of such disorders, and
the conditions for sustainability have been
maintained.
95. The
micronutrient supplement programmes are being evaluated with a view to improving
their coverage of the population at greatest
risk. Their effectiveness will
depend on the extent to which they are adapted to the cultural patterns of the
country’s different
regions and on the design of access strategies for
sparsely populated areas.
Chronic
malnutrition[35]
96. There
have been no changes in the past five years in the chronic malnutrition rate
among under-fives. This means that 25 per
cent of these children suffer from
chronic malnutrition. The three national surveys carried out in the past decade
revealed a considerable
gap between the incidence of chronic malnutrition in
urban areas (13 per cent in 2000) and rural areas, where the rate remained
unchanged
(40 per cent in 1996 and 2000)
97. Underweight for height or
acute malnutrition affects only one per cent of children and remains at a
similar level as in earlier
years. It is an indicator of recent malnutrition
resulting from poorer diet and/or the presence of illness in the recent
past.
98. It must be stressed that the reduction of child malnutrition
has not been enjoyed by the poorest population groups and has thus
increased the
inequity. Given that malnutrition is closely associated with underdevelopment
and poverty, it will not be possible
to strengthen and improve the coordination
of the existing nutrition programmes unless nutrition is made one of the first
priorities
on the national agenda.
National food aid programme (PRONAA)
The mission of this decentralized institution is “To help to
improve the dietary and nutritional standards of the population living in
extreme poverty by carrying out food aid and
food security programmes aimed
principally at vulnerable groups at high nutritional risk”.
General objectives
(a) To promote the comprehensive development of women and families on the
basis of gender equity;
(b) To promote the participatory and sustainable development of
grass-roots social organizations and peasant and indigenous communities;
(c) To promote the development and comprehensive care of the populations
at risk.
Specific objectives
(a) To promote participation by the people in order to secure the
comprehensive development of an organized population;
(b) In the medium term PRONAA must succeed in reaching the population in
need of food aid and food security by taking advantage of
its managerial
capacity and its experience in programme leadership;
(c) To optimize the institution’s technical and administrative
management capacity;
(d) To promote measures to enhance the institution’s image by
converting it into an efficient and effective agency for the
implementation of
social programmes.
Target population
The target population consists of the groups living in conditions of
extreme poverty and a situation of nutritional vulnerability.
Within this
framework, priority attention is to be given to the following population
groups:
(a) Children aged under five years, with the emphasis on the
under-threes;
(b) Children of school age;
(c) Pregnant women and nursing mothers;
(d) Population groups in situations of nutritional risk (the sick and the
elderly);
(e) Population groups in emergency situations (natural disasters or
accidents).
The target population also includes organized groups (mothers’ clubs,
public canteens and peasant communities) whose purposes
are connected with the
improvement of food security. PRONAA also helps small agricultural producers
and small-scale fishers by buying
their products to guarantee the food security
of the target population.
PRONAA has the following programmes for
children:[36]
|
3. Initial education
99. Initial education is the first
level of Peru’s education system and as such is intended to provide
comprehensive and good-quality
training to foster the development of children
aged under six, respecting their identities and supporting the education
services
and the capacity of the family and the community to take better care of
children’s early development. This training is provided
by initial
education schools and special arrangements known as non-school programmes
(PRONOEI).
100. The net attendance rates in initial education have been
as follows: for four years: boys - 49.5 per cent, and girls - 53 per
cent; and
for five years: boys - 66 per cent, and girls - 69 per cent. By geographical
region the figures are: Metropolitan Lima
- 50 per cent; rest of the coast
– 51 per cent; mountains - 40 per cent; and forest 47.5 per
cent. The following table shows
the differences in the net attendance rates by
region between 1997 and 2000.
Age
|
1997
|
2000
|
||
Urban
|
Rural
|
Urban
|
Rural
|
|
Three years
|
20,6
|
23,7
|
29,2
|
20,3
|
Four years
|
54,7
|
37,1
|
53,0
|
49,7
|
Five years
|
78,3
|
52,8
|
74,2
|
58,8
|
Source: INEI. National Housing Survey - Fourth
Quarter.
101. The non-school
programmes[37] number 17,000
for the whole country and cater for 400,000 children aged three to five
years. The direct and indirect educational
provision for the under-threes is
insufficient (especially as this is age at which the potential of the human
being begins to flower):
the coverage of three-year-olds was 41.5 per cent in
1999. The non-school programmes for children aged four to five have little
control over the results in poor areas and offer a very precarious service,
generally limited to boring activities conducted in closed
spaces. For these
and other reasons, children aged under six from extremely poor households
continue to exhibit severe deficits
in their early development, nutrition and
health.[38]
National Wawa Wasi Programme (PNWW)
The PNWW has been developed at the national level for children aged up to
three years from poor and extremely poor homes. It thus
caters for the children
of working mothers, providing a comprehensive service: a balanced diet,
development stimulation, and preventive
health care. One of the pillars of this
programme is the promotion and dissemination of a culture of correct upbringing
designed
to teach sound practices for the stimulation of children’s
development. This culture is defined as the knowledge, customs,
attitudes and
values possessed by the family and society in respect of the raising and care of
children
|
||||
PNWW
|
1999
|
2000
|
2001
|
2002*
|
Children covered by the programme
|
11 736
|
24 075
|
28 476
|
33 517
|
Number of mothers-carers
|
1 467
|
2 960
|
3 530
|
4 149
|
Number of management committees
|
108
|
227
|
255
|
316
|
Number of Wawa Wasis
|
1 074
|
2 702
|
3 215
|
3 874
|
* Figures up to June 2002
Source: National Wawa Wasi
Programme
102. The following projects are currently being executed in
initial and primary education:
(a) The radio brings us together. This project is designed to
improve the quality and equity of basic education in rural areas by means of
radio broadcasts; it is
implemented by the Ministry of Education and funded by
the Organization of American States. Participating countries: Chile, Colombia,
Mexico, Peru and Venezuela;
(b) Schools of the future. This pilot project is designed to ensure
that pupils use information technology in the form of special software by
promoting the
development of their abilities and attitudes and through
introductory projects;
(c) Educational materials project - Andrés Bello Agreement.
This project is being implemented under the Andrés Bello Agreement, one
of whose purposes is to improve education systems;
the aim is to build up the
national capacity of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru to produce innovative educational
materials to enhance
the quality of education in primary schools in the areas of
integrated communications, mathematical logic and science, and the
environment.
4. The right to a name
103. It is essential
for the purposes of personal identification for births to be recorded at a
registry office and for the corresponding
certificate to be issued. The
exercise of the right to a name depends not only on prompt registration but also
on correction of
failure to register a birth; the causes of such failure
include:
104. In practice,
it is usually the mother who goes to the civil registry office to register her
child when he or she has been born
of an extramarital relationship. This is
when the difficulty arises, for if the father is not present the current
legislation (the
Civil Code and the Regulations of the National Register of
Identity and Civil Status) prohibits the registration of a child in his
father’s name.
105. The exact total of unregistered children is not
known, but according to
UNICEF[39] 15 per cent
(110,000) of Peru’s children are not registered with the relevant
agencies. Taking as a yardstick the district
of Lima, where access to a
registry office is relatively easy and nine per cent of children were not
registered in 1997,[40] it
may be assumed that the percentage was substantially higher for rural
children.
106. One positive development was the approval in 2001 of a
regulation establishing the obligation of adoptive parents to sign their
child’s birth certificate as declarants of the birth.
107. Furthermore,
2001 also saw the start-up of the minors’ identification project of the
National Register of Identity and
Civil Status (RENIEC) for six-year-olds, who
will receive their national identity document free of charge.
C. Children and primary school (6-11 years)
108. Article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes
the right of the child to compulsory primary education available
free to all and
urges the State and the family to take measures to encourage regular attendance
at school and the reduction of drop-out
rates. In the period 1999-2000, 88 per
cent of pupils graduated from primary education, the repeated-year rate was nine
per cent,
and the drop-out rate three per
cent.[41] We now describe
the main features of the exercise of this right by children in the Peru of
today.
1. School attendance and learning
109. Peru is
entering the new millennium with a high rate of scholastic failure, repeated
years and drop-outs. For example, the proportion
of over-age pupils in primary
schools is 23 per cent in rural areas and 15 per cent in urban areas; in 1997
the figures were 30 and
17 per
cent.[42]
110. The
gaps are even wider in the poorest rural areas, where failure to complete basic
education reproduces the status of exclusion
of thousands of children who reach
adolescence and adulthood without developing their capacity to perform
satisfactorily in the work
and social
contexts.[43]
111. The
efforts made by the public and private education sectors have been insufficient
to reduce the disparities of access to quality
education services. The
inequalities between rural and urban schools and public and private schools
persist in terms both of infrastructure
and equipment and of curriculum content,
technological facilities and actual hours of teaching.
112. Moreover, the
education system is short of adequately trained personnel and has scant
interface with the local community (the
cultural, linguistic, social and work
context). Single-teacher schools are common, particularly in rural areas. A
very high proportion
of rural primary pupils has a very poor education service.
As a result they suffer very serious deficits in their basic reading
and writing
skills to which the system does not react promptly and effectively; they also
lack the possibility of attending secondary
school.
113. Where rural
education is concerned, it may also be pointed out
that:[44]
114. In many areas of Peru the mother
tongue of pupils in rural schools is not Spanish, so that they cannot
familiarize themselves
with the usages and habits of their teachers, who come
from urban areas or from other regions.
115. In addition, out of
ignorance many indigenous communities still do not believe in the advantages of
a bilingual education, while
the improvements in cross-cultural bilingual
education promoted by the Ministry of Education are still insufficient. Only 52
per
cent[45] of children in
bilingual communities are currently taught by this method. Furthermore,
cross-cultural bilingual education is not
an option in the rest of the education
system, owing to a lack of belief in its potential to enrich pupils’
cultural identity.
2. Education of rural girls
116. Most of
the girls excluded from the education system are from extremely poor families in
rural areas. For example, while five
per cent of girls who are merely
“poor” do not go to school, the figure is double that for the
extremely
poor.[46]
117. There
are only 25,000 rural schools for 75,000 small settlements (1998). Many girls
do not have their “papers” on
the day, and this makes it difficult
for them to enrol at the right
time.[47]
118. In
urban areas boys attend school, on average, for slightly longer than girls (9.3
and 8.1 years respectively), but the gap is
wider in rural areas, where girls
attend school for an average of 2.9 years; and the gap between urban and rural
girls widened from
4.5 years in 1996 to 5.2 years in 2000. Similarly, the
average for rural boys (4.7 years) is higher than for rural girls (2.9 years),
and the gap widened from 1.5 years in 1996 to 1.8 years in
2000.[48]
119. Given
the wide dispersal and remoteness of rural settlements and the difficulties
which girls have in travelling to other settlements
to attend school, the
possibility of their receiving an education depends on whether there is a school
in their community or village.
Furthermore, many of the schools do not offer
the full primary course, and there are very few cases in which a family can
afford
to send children to school in a bigger settlement in the region; for
girls this likelihood is even more remote.
120. Generally speaking, most
of these girls do manage to establish a connection with a primary school. A
third of rural girls enrol
in the first grade a year or two late. Given the
problem of over-age pupils, which is exacerbated by the repeated-year and
drop-out
rates, girls have a reduced possibility of completing their primary
education and they drop out from the third and fourth grades.
In the third
grade in rural schools 77 per cent of the girls are over-age, and the proportion
rises to 88 per cent in the fourth
grade.[49]
121. There
is no doubt that the factors determining whether rural girls enrol and remain in
school include the stereotyped ideas and
values which perceive women as having
lower status and as performing the role of mothers, which does not require
attendance at school;
education is thus perceived as something which can be
dispensed with or postponed.
122. The Peruvian State is promoting
improvements in this area through the Education of Rural Girls (Promotion) Act
(No. 27558),[50] which sets
the following objectives with respect to diversified educational services for
rural girls:
(a) To provide for all children in rural schools goals and strategies which will accord them equity of access and quality in the education which they receive;
(b) In the light of their specific needs and interests, to establish specific objectives for rural girls in initial, primary and secondary education; and
(c) To provide a diversified curriculum in line with the social and cultural
reality.
With regard to enrolment the Act proposes:
(a) Universal enrolment in initial, primary and secondary education;
(b) Enrolment at the correct age and continued attendance until completion of secondary education;
(c) Access to programmes combining in-school and non-school education for
children who live in remote areas or have time problems
obstructing regular
school attendance.
D. Adolescents (12-17 years)
123. Adolescence can mean different things in a multicultural country
like Peru. In the rural areas of the Andes and the Amazon adolescence
is a
brief, almost non-existent period whose main feature is the search for a partner
and the start of married life. In urban areas
adolescence lasts for several
years, almost always characterized by the search for job or study opportunities.
Other differences
between Peru’s adolescents stem from their differing
family dynamics, quality of life and images of success.
124. Peru has a
total of 3.7 million adolescents, two thirds of them living in urban
areas.[51] Most adolescents
migrate from the countryside to the towns in search of opportunities for work
and a career. Most adolescents have
the following problems:
125. These problems have many causes. They include
poverty (a third of adolescents are extremely poor), poor communication at home,
violence in and outside the family, weak exercise of parental responsibility,
and lack of suitable facilities for adolescents (among
which schools and
communication media may be included). Furthermore, many adolescents are unaware
of their rights and others are
affected by a widespread public perception that
adolescents are very dangerous people.
1. Access to health and
education services
126. Owing to the problems with basic education
mentioned above and to other problems stemming from exclusion, 23 per cent of
adolescents,
most of them girls, do not attend school; many girls drop out of
school as a result of pregnancy or maternity despite the benefit
of a legal
framework which protects adolescent girls who have or are expecting a child
against having to drop out of school. The
over-age population in secondary
schools stands at 28 per cent in rural areas and 20 per cent in urban
areas.[52]
127. In
1999-2000 the graduation rate from secondary school was 89 per cent, the
repeated-year rate seven per cent, and the drop-out
rate four per
cent.[53]
128. The
health services and special programmes for adolescents (sexual and reproductive
health, mental health, vocational guidance,
education projects) are still
limited in coverage and quality. The reasons for this are the low volume of
public investment in this
area and the lack of prevention programmes, together
with ignorance of the available services on the part of families and adolescents
themselves.
129. The morbidity and mortality rates connected with risky
sexual conduct and situations of violence are high; the situation calls
for the
available integrated services to be expanded and adapted to the needs and
cultural patterns of adolescents.
2. Opportunities for participation
by adolescents
130. Adolescents seek spaces where they can get
together with each other, practice alternative life styles, and exercise their
right
to express their opinions about matters which concern them. Society is not
yet providing sufficient opportunities for this kind of
participation either in
the family, the schools, the community or the communication media. The lack of
such opportunities is one
of the reasons for adolescent violence, including the
gang culture.
131. There is a lack of activities to develop
adolescents’ independence and inadequate provision of opportunities to
acquire
democratic habits and exercise shared power. The Convention on the
Rights of the Child recognizes the freedom of association for
lawful purposes;
it is therefore necessary to equip adolescents with all the tools for the
development of the abilities and skills
which will empower them and enable them
to exercise their right to participate.
3. Sex and reproduction
counselling
132. Adolescent pregnancy is a problem in all regions of
the country, although it is more prevalent in rural areas, and it is the
third
commonest cause of death - from complications during pregnancy, delivery and the
perinatal period, as well as from abortion.
There is no family planning service
for adolescents even though the need for one is obvious and such a service is
one of the few
available means of tackling this problem, the root of which lies
precisely in the lack of guidance and services aimed directly at
preventing all
the risks associated with an active sex life.
133. According to
ENDES-2000, 11 per cent of adolescent girls between the ages of 15 and 19 were
already mothers, and more than a
third of them had no education; such girls are
putting at risk their own lives and the lives of their children, for it has been
shown
that a mother’s health, education and nutrition are decisive factors
for the survival and full development of her child, as
well as for her own
survival.
134. Fifteen per cent of the pregnant women using the health
services of the Ministry of Health were adolescents. When analysing
this data
it should be borne in mind that in 1998 the free school insurance programme paid
for 3,015 antenatal checks and 1,440 attended
deliveries for adolescent girls.
This shows a clear discrepancy between the number of checks and the number of
attended deliveries
and points to the need to mobilize other grass-roots
resources to help pregnant adolescents, as well as to run information programmes
to prevent unwanted early
pregnancies.[54]
135. The
cases of HIV/AIDS among young people are due to unsafe sexual relations during
adolescence, the lack of appropriate sex education,
and ignorance of means of
protection. The male to female ratio of AIDS sufferers is 3:1, and vertical
transmission from seropositive
mothers to their children is on the increase, as
is the number of infected women. This increased risk in women is associated
with
their lack of bargaining power with their partners when it comes to the use
of contraceptives. It is calculated that in December
1999 Peru had 4,500
children aged under 15 living with
HIV/AIDS.[55]
136. We now
offer some statistics[56]
relating abortion to pregnancy which indicate a growing problem.
Year
|
10-14 years
|
15-19 years
|
||
Abortions
|
Pregnancies
|
Abortions
|
Pregnancies
|
|
1996
|
61
|
3 100
|
1 665
|
100 868
|
1997
|
74
|
3 282
|
1 830
|
105 081
|
1998
|
102
|
3 740
|
1 739
|
114 400
|
1999
|
96
|
5 054
|
1 907
|
133 983
|
2001
|
-
|
-
|
4 765
|
132 762
|
4. Addictive behaviour and drug abuse
137. Drug addiction
is a public health problem in Peru. The statistical records show that
adolescents of both sexes remain the population
at greatest risk of drug use.
The use and abuse of legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are the gateway to
the use of illegal
drugs.
138. The following table shows the percentage
of adolescents who have used a legal drug in the past
year.[57]
Legal drug
|
Age group
|
||
12 - 13
|
14 - 16
|
17 - 19
|
|
Alcohol
|
48
|
60
|
77
|
Tobacco
|
11
|
31
|
47
|
Tranqillizers
|
1
|
1
|
3
|
139. The age at which a drug is first used provides information about the
age groups at risk, on which the treatment and prevention
measures must be
concentrated.
140. Analysis of the likelihood of a person’s
beginning to use a drug shows that initiation occurs at very early ages,
especially
in the case of legal drugs. However, it is a well known fact that
the likelihood of drug use increases sharply from the age of puberty
(12 years).
Of the illegal drugs, marihuana is the most likely to be used, mainly from the
age of 15.[58]
Incidence of use (%)
Drug
|
Age group
|
||
12 a 13
|
14 a 16
|
17 a 19
|
|
Marihuana
|
0,1
|
1,8
|
4,6
|
Basic paste
|
0,1
|
1,1
|
2,6
|
Cocaine
|
0,0
|
0,2
|
2,9
|
Inhalants
|
1,8
|
2,7
|
3,5
|
Tranquillizers
|
1,6
|
2,4
|
3,5
|
Source: National Survey of Drug Prevention and Use.
CONTRADROGAS.
141. The Act regulating treatment communities in Peru
stipulates that these communities must treat females, males and children in
separate facilities. In addition, any one facility must treat only adults, only
adolescents aged 12 to 17, or only children under
12.[59]
142. Over 90
per cent of such facilities are for adult males; nine facilities (8.6%) are
exclusively for children; and one (1%) exclusively
for women. There are no
treatment communities exclusively for adolescents; adolescents are sometimes
treated in the facilities for
children and sometimes in those for
adults.[60]
143. Risk
factors for adolescent drug use:
The project “Peruvian Family for a Healthy
Life”
The aim of this project is to prevent and reduce drug use by children and
adolescents by taking an environmental approach which perceives
this phenomenon
as having many causes - of a social, economic, cultural, family and personal
nature - which are interdependent and
in flux and therefore susceptible to
change and alteration.
General objective:
To build up local networks specializing in grass-roots prevention of drug
use by enhancing the educational capital represented by
local leaders, who will
carry on sustained educational and preventive activities designed to boost the
factors of prevention and
reduce the factors of risk.
Project strategy:
To give priority to the work with local social networks to ensure
grass-roots mobilization and the sharing of responsibility, securing
the active
involvement of all local grass-roots actors, children, adolescents, parents,
teachers, community leaders and institutions
in the promotion of the factors
which provide protection against drug use.
|
E. Rights for the whole of childhood (0-17 years)
1. Children in need of special protection
144. Article 19
of the Convention on the Rights of the Child calls on States to take all
appropriate legislative, administrative,
social and educational measures to
protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or
abuse, neglect or negligent
treatment, including sexual abuse. Violence against
children is thus a violation of their human rights.
145. In recent
years States have been recognizing such phenomena as domestic violence,
maltreatment of children, sexual violence and
adolescent suicide as public
health problems owing both to their widespread occurrence and to the effects and
consequences for children
in the short and long terms.
Victims of
political violence
146. It is calculated that some 1.6 million
persons have been affected by political violence, 30 per cent of them children.
According
to the Programme of Support for the Resettlement and Development of
Emergency Zones (PAR), about 600,000 of these persons, including
children
orphaned by the fighting, moved away from their home communities because of the
armed
conflict.[61]
147. The
PAR gave priority to the strategy of returning displaced persons to their
places of origin and developed as its working
methods support for production
activities, social support, and the treatment of mental health problems, in the
departments of Ayacucho,
Apurímac, Junín, Huancavelica,
Huánuco and San Martín.
Programme of Support for the Resettlement and
Development
of Emergency Zones (PAR)
Allocation of PAR investments 1994-2000
|
|||
|
|
Settlements
|
Population assisted
|
Resettlement
|
109 organized return operations
|
227
|
21 306
|
Housing
|
13,085 units built/rehabilitated
|
393
|
70 930
|
Education
|
1,222 classroms
|
418
|
61 680
|
Health
|
62 health posts
255 drinking-water
systems
12 sewerage systems
|
62
255 12 |
40 340
128 930 12 260 |
Citizenship
|
764,900 undocumented persons registered
920 DDHH
training events
|
Nationwide
320
|
764 900
25 320 |
Agriculture
|
155 km of irrigation channels
|
65
|
33 900
|
Transport
|
213 km of roads
|
63
|
24 900
|
Basic functions
Purpose: To build a sustainable peace
and make good the damage done by the political violence
Target population: The immediate target population is the
population affected by the political violence
|
148. With regard to the effects of the political violence on children,
reports indicate that there are 17,807 widows, 43,000 orphans,
and more than
47,000 persons having suffered psychological
damage.[62]
149. Many of
the victims were children who lost close family members such as parents or more
distant relatives who were murdered or
disappeared; they were direct or indirect
witnesses of acts of political violence: murder, torture, killing, armed
clashes, etc.;
they were born or grew up in a situation of forced displacement
to preserve the physical integrity of the members of their families,
involving
the loss of their family goods and property.
150. The consequences of
this violence are visible in the development of certain characteristics in these
children, such as dropping
out of school, especially in children aged over 14
and in teenage mothers. As a result of this situation a decision was taken in
1999 to create the National Programme for Care of Children Orphaned by the
Terrorist Violence (PROHVIT) to work with the more than
43,000 orphan victims of
the political
violence.[63]
Victims
of domestic violence
151. Recent years have seen the enactment of
laws to protect the human rights of children and women, such as the Domestic
Violence
Act (No. 26260) on the prevention of violence in the family and Act No.
26763, which incorporates preventive measures and sets out
public policies for
the prevention of such violence. In addition, Act No. 27637 was promulgated on
16 January of this year, establishing
temporary shelters for child victims of
sexual violence to be headed and administered by the MIMDES National Programme
to Combat
Domestic and Sexual Violence.
152. It is estimated that in
eight out of every 10 cases of sexual abuse the perpetrator is a member of the
victim’s family
circle and that six out of every 10 pregnancies of girls
aged 11 to 14 are the result of incest or rape. Furthermore, 33 per cent
of
girls and women in the 15-49 age range believe that physical punishment is
sometimes needed in the upbringing of children. On
this same point, recent
national surveys have revealed that 49 per cent of children are beaten by their
parents and that children
themselves regard this practice as a natural means of
discipline and
education.[64]
Allin Tayta (Good Daddy) Programme
This programme is coordinating the efforts of three public agencies
(MIMDES, INABIF and MINEDU) with a view to devising an innovative
and visionary
proposal, in a multidimensional framework and with a single information system
and effective equipment, on Fatherhood
in the Andes from the standpoint of
developing children’s resistance to bad influences.
The purpose of this project is to improve the image of fathers in their
relations with their children, with regard to affection and
feelings and
education and training, through recognition of the importance of a
father’s participation in the family circle
and by analysing and
encouraging a positive role for fathers in their children’s social and
emotional development.
The multisectoral programme has two phases: the first began with a piece of
applied research on fatherhood in the Andes designed to
produce a true and
objective picture of fatherhood models in this region; the second covers the
design, approval and implementation
of culturally appropriate recreation/play
strategies to promote positive patterns of child-raising.
|
National Programme to Combat Domestic and Sexual Violence
(PNCVFS)
MIMDES introduced this programme to protect the rights of victims of
domestic and sexual violence by means of measures implemented
by the
system’s agents. Intersectoral work resulted in the establishment of 36
emergency centres for women. During the first
two months of this year these
centres reported 2,111 cases involving children aged under 18 (nine per cent of
total cases).[65]
Objectives
Emergency centres for women
The country has 36 of these centres offering comprehensive care free of
charge to victims of domestic and sexual violence and enjoying
the support of
various public agencies in the provision of the services, which include
psychological consultations, legal advice,
police action, social services,
forensic medicine, and extrajudicial conciliation (in cases not constituting
domestic violence),
as well as the services of the provincial procurators for
family affairs.
Rehabilitation programmes
A rehabilitation plan for victims and perpetrators is currently at the
design stage; this stage includes the establishment of models
for intervention
by psychotherapists which take account of social and cultural diversity and
promote social values and the involvement
of persons after treatment in
social-support networks under the National Programme to Combat Domestic and
Family Violence.
Shelters
The shelters form part of the system of emergency care for victims of
domestic or sexual violence which helps to preserve their physical
and mental
integrity. They are conceived as temporary refuges offering women a safe place
in which they can consider their situation
and decide on a new life project in
peace and free from violence. MIMDES has been working to help to transform
these emergency centres
into “Houses of Hope”.
Scope
|
153. There are several services for the prevention of domestic violence
and maltreatment of children and for the care of victims,
such as the
children’s ombudsmen and the Health Ministry’s units for maltreated
children (MAMIs) installed in 21 of the
country’s
hospitals.
154. The statistics show that 41 per cent of women who were in
a relationship at some time have been pushed, beaten or otherwise physically
assaulted by their husband or partner, 83 per cent of them occasionally and a
significant 16 per cent frequently (ENDES-2000, INEI).
155. The National
Police in the Seventh Region has established in every police station in
Metropolitan Lima a unit to deal with family
cases in an effort to tackle the
problem of domestic violence and maltreatment of women and
children.[66]
Disabled
children
156. Peru has a little under 700,000 children suffering from
some kind of disability.[67]
There were 30,834 persons enrolled in special education schools in 2000, not all
of them aged under 18, and 3,639 special education
teachers working in the
school modality and 169 in the non-school
modality.[68]
157. In
urban areas children with severe disability are catered for in special education
programmes in the departmental chief towns,
in which the enrolment is less than
2,000.[69] There are no such
programmes in rural areas.
158. Significant progress has been made
within the existing legal framework in spelling out the rights of disabled
children. There
is a General Act on the protection of disabled persons, which
stresses inter alia the importance of removing architectural and urban-design
barriers which impede the free movement of disabled persons.
159. In
addition, the National Council for the Integration of Disabled Persons(CONADIS)
was set up under MIMDES to take over the intersectoral
coordination of measures
to help disabled persons throughout their lives. The programmes for children in
this sector have very limited
coverage. It is calculated that during the period
under consideration only 11,150 children (15 per cent of this population)
benefited
under the MIMDES
programmes.[70]
National Council for the Integration of Disabled Persons
(CONADIS)
CONADIS formulated and is implementing a multisectoral national plan for
the sustainable human development of disabled persons, with
emphasis on members
of extremely poor groups.
The Council has registered 69 associations, organizations and unions of and
for disabled persons.
One encouraging development is that special efforts are being made to
persuade people to adopt disabled children; as a result, such
adoptions
accounted for 30 per cent of all adoptions in the past
year,[71] indicating positive
discrimination with a view to placement of disabled children in a family.
|
Working children
160. According to the latest INEI
figures,[72] Peru has
1,833,375 working children aged between six and 17 years; this means that 25 per
cent of the total population in this age
range is economically
active.
161. It is estimated that 1,570,596 of the children making up
this total are aged between six and 13, i.e. 22 per cent of total membership
of
that age group. The figure for children aged between 14 and 17 is 775,779,
indicating that 35.5 per cent of the total population
in this age range is
economically active.
162. In the case of the department of Lima,
including the Constitutional Province of Callao, it is estimated that 242,214
children
aged between six and 17 are working, i.e. 12.6 per cent of the total
population in that age range. The department of San Martín
has 40,568
working children aged between six and 17, representing 19.8 per cent of the
total population in that age range. Cusco
has a register of 147,617 working
children, i.e. 44.4 per cent of all persons aged between six and
17.
163. High-risk child labour (rubbish tips, mines, quarries,
cane-cutting, etc.) is increasing in step with the deterioration in the
people’s living conditions; it takes various forms depending on the
locality (rubbish collection and sorting in the markets
and ports, itinerant
vending of regional and similar products, informal river transport services,
domestic work, shoe-shining, street
vending, etc.).
164. Peru has
signed ILO Convention 182 on the elimination of the worst forms of child labour
and the exploitation of children. It
has adopted Act No. 27571, which amends
the minimum ages for admission to work in certain activities (article 51 of the
Children’s
and Adolescents’ Code). However, the Children’s
and Adolescents’ Code, promulgated in August 2000 and recently
revised, is
still vague with respect to the minimum age of child labour and conceals this
issue in provisions relating to situations
of economic crisis. The need in this
context is to promote effective measures to contribute to the gradual
elimination of child
labour, with the emphasis on hazardous
work.
165. The current Code is vague on the question of child labour in
the following respects:
166. There are various figures on the number
of child workers; the following information is available on employment in
brickworks:[73]
Locations
|
Huachipa, Lima and other places.
|
||||
Number
|
About 1,000
|
Age
|
5-17 years
|
||
Sex
|
80 per cent male
|
||||
Wages
|
Unpaid
|
Other remuneration
|
Food and shelter
|
||
Hours
|
An average of 4-6 hours a day
|
||||
Description:
The children work with their families, usually from the provinces, making
bricks on piecework; they live on the land where they work
(“pampas”). They have to produce a given quantity of bricks per
week in order to survive.
Depending on their age, the children may work in any stage of brick
manufacture: processing of the clay (extraction, grinding, sifting
and mixing);
pouring the clay into the moulds; removal from the moulds; and carrying and
stacking). They work in bad weather and
in deplorable health and safety
conditions. The work is repetitive and tedious.
|
|||||
Risks and consequences:
Employment in brickworks is harmful to children’s health owing to the
poor health and safety conditions, which may also affect
their emotional
development.
Carrying excessive weights delays and distorts their physical development
and exposes them to the risk of fractures and other injuries,
a situation
aggravated by their poor diet.
The shortage of water and the permanent contact with clay facilitate the
transmission of infectious skin and bronchial disorders.
The work in the “pampas” is monotonous and oppressive with no
element of creativity; this also has an impact on the children’s
development.
|
167. The following information is available on work performed by children
in mines:[74]
Locations
|
Puno, Madre de Dios, La Libertad, Ayacucho, Arequipa and Ica
|
|||
Number
|
50,000
|
Age
|
5-17 years
|
|
Sexo
|
Mayoritariamente hombres
|
|||
Wages: Young children receive a “tip” of one sol per
working day. Older children usually have informal agreements for more
money
|
Other remuneration: Share in the family economy
|
|||
Hours
|
Seasonal work in the holidays, when they may work from 7.30 a.m. until
nightfall
|
|||
Description
The children perform almost all the tasks involved in mining,
including:
Geographical and climatic factors make living conditions
at these sites very harsh; the communities usually lack basic services such
as
drinking water, sewerage, and refuse collection. Their dwellings are
precarious, being made of extremely low-grade materials.
The education and
health services are insufficient and poorly equipped. The mining work is
performed in deplorable health and safety
conditions.
|
||||
Risks and consequences
Many of the children working in small-scale mining suffer from anaemia,
chronic malnutrition and even tuberculosis. In the coldest
mining areas they
usually contract severe respiratory ailments, and there is a high incidence of
rheumatism and arthritis. In the
hottest areas they are more likely to contract
acute diarrhoea from the polluted water.
Most of the children suffer from chronic fatigue, various bone diseases and
conditions, and chronic poisoning from exposure to liquid
and gaseous mercury,
which can cause problems ranging from headaches, insomnia, timidity, nervousness
and nausea to loss of memory
and self-control, irritability and excitability,
anxiety, sleepiness and depression. They are also exposed to the risk of
bruising,
cuts and fractures, and there is very little likelihood of treatment
at a health post, either because there are none or because,
when there is a
health post, it lacks equipment, staff and suitable medicines.
The children’s education is also seriously affected by their mining
work, which usually prevents them from attending school
regularly or taking part
in recreational activities, thus having an adverse impact on their personal
development and reducing their
future job prospects and inexorably reproducing
the cycle of poverty.
|
168. There has been very little study of the work performed by children
in rural areas. According to the latest population census
(1993), 40 per cent
of Peru’s children are employed in farming activities, and the rural
sector is where the lowest rates of
school attendance are found.
169. A
number of qualitative studies have documented the harmful effects of child
labour, pointing to problems of physical and mental
health, impairment of
children’s school attendance and academic performance, and high rates of
repeated years and drop-outs.
For example, 49 per cent of children who work as
well as attending school are one or two years behind their coevals; and one out
of every three children who work does not go to
school.[75]
170. The
following information is available on domestic
work:[76]
Locations: The country’s main towns
|
|||||
Number
|
Over 100,000
|
Age
|
6-17 years
|
Sex
|
Mainly girls
|
Wages
|
A few receive adequate wages; most work for board and lodging
|
||||
Other remuneration
|
Clothing, board and lodging; sometimes education
|
||||
Hours
|
Whole day, from 5-6 a.m. to 9-10 p.m.
|
||||
Description:
It has been established that these girls work between 12 and 16 hours a day
at household tasks (from shopping to cooking and cleaning
and looking after the
smallest children).
Most of the girls are from the countryside, sent by their own families in
the hope of obtaining education and a better job than in
their places of
origin.
The employers usually do not have a labour relationship with the girls
since they are responsible only for their board and lodging
and, up to a point,
their education.
In some cases the girls are entrusted to an employer by their own parents
so that the employer may bring them up in a kind of “godparent”
relationship. From the moment when an employer accepts a girl she loses contact
with her natural family and thus comes to depend
fully on the employer for her
basic needs.
|
|||||
Risks and consequences:
Many of these young workers find their mental health affected because they
are not living their own lives. They play the games that
other children want;
they experience the joys of their employer’s children, and the toys that
they play with belong to other
children. In short, they do not have their own
dreams.
Domestic child labour is “invisible work” because it takes
place inside the home without any system of supervision. Many
of the girls live
isolated lives and have serious health problems and problems of self-esteem, for
they have no opportunity to share
their lives with other girls like
themselves.
Many of the girls suffer discrimination, maltreatment and physical and
verbal violence and they are at risk of sexual abuse by one
or more members of
the employer family. The long working days prevent them from studying. They
feel very alone and abandoned.
They grow up without any moral support or
love.
|
171. MIMDES operates a street teachers programme whose target population
includes not only child workers but also children who live
in the
street.
172. The main objective with these children is to prevent their
involvement in work which impedes their integrated development. The
programme
encourages them to resume their education by helping them to enrol in school and
providing support. MIMDES also runs services
to help children change their jobs
or rejoin their families and to support them in legal cases of child
protection.
Child labour network
This Network came into being following the signature of a memorandum of
understanding between the Government of Peru and ILO on the
implementation at
the national level of measures for the gradual elimination of child labour. The
National Steering Committee for
the Elimination of Child Labour and Protection
of Child Workers was established by Supreme Resolution No.
059-97-PROMUDEH.
The Network is made up of representatives of various organs of the State,
including the Ministry for Women and Social Development,
the Ministry of Labour
and Job Creation, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, the
Ministry of the Economy and Finance,
the Ministry of Energy and Mines, the
Ministry of the Interior, the National Institute for Statistics and Information,
the Office
of the Attorney-General, and the Judiciary, as well as
representatives of international cooperation agencies and civil society.
Objective
To propose policies, regulations and measures designed to prevent the
recruitment of child labour and secure its gradual elimination
by promoting
respect for and the exercise of children’s rights, and to protect working
children by mobilizing society and raising
its awareness through the
implementation of coordinated measures to encourage the participation of the
various social actors.
|
Children deprived of a family environment
173. Although
2,272 children were adopted in the period
1993-2002[77] under the
Adoptions (Administrative Procedures) Act, which regulates the adoption of
children declared by a court to be abandoned
(Act No. 26081 of 1998), weaknesses
persist in the implementation of a national programme offering, with broad
powers to act of its
own motion, a solution to the problem of orphaned children
and children declared abandoned.
174. Some eight per cent of the
country’s households have among their members a child living with the
family as an “adopted”
child; these are children who do not live
with either of their biological parents even if they are alive. The figure is
higher in
rural areas (nine per cent) than in urban areas (seven per
cent).[78]
175. Some
of the shelters responsible for taking in abandoned or neglected children are in
a poor state, while others are full to
capacity; this means that many of these
children wander the streets and squares, suffering permanent violation of their
rights, including
the most basic ones. Furthermore, there hardly any special
shelters for disabled children.
176. There is a need for regulations to
govern the operation of these shelters and for a public agency capable of
ensuring proper
monitoring, with participation by the community.
National secretariat for adoptions (SNA)
The past experience of the institutions responsible for the national
adoptions programme pointed to the need to incorporate adoptions
in a global
policy for children and the family which put an end once and for all to the
domination of the interests of individuals
over the interests of children.
Accordingly, this year is seeing the creation of the National Secretariat for
Adoptions as the central
executive authority for adoptions charged with
establishing an efficient national adoptions system.
At present the Secretariat has 10 local adoptions offices located
throughout the country in the departments of Arequipa, Ayacucho,
Cuzco,
Huánuco, Lambayeque, La Libertad, Moquegua, Loreto, Piura and Puno; a
further 13 local offices are needed to complete
the coverage of the adoptions
system. However, the Adoptions Office has six tutelary investigators: two are
assigned to the Eleventh
and Thirteenth Family Courts in Lima, one to the family
courts in the Northern Cone, one to the basic-module courts in Ventanilla,
El
Agustino and Villa María del Triunfo, and two to cases conducted in the
provinces where there are no local adoptions offices.
In general terms, there no adequate arrangements for dealing with children
at risk, and there have even been cases of a shelter housing
juvenile offenders
alongside children having no association with crime.
The number of children living in institutions is not known precisely, but
the centres run by the National Family Welfare Institute
(INABIF) and the
Foundation for the Children of Peru are estimated to house 3,982 children
nationwide.[79]
|
177. The National Family Welfare Institute (INABIF) is the public agency
responsible for planning, proposing, managing, implementing
and evaluating
family welfare policies and for ensuring that priority is given to children at
risk in accordance with the sectoral
policy, the provisions of the Constitution,
and the purposes of the State in establishing the present legislation. It has
the following divisions:
Comprehensive Protection
Division
178. This Division is one of the two line agencies of
INABIF and as such is responsible for planning, coordinating, implementing,
managing, supervising and evaluating programmes and measures for the personal
training and family and social integration of children
who are at risk owing to
their state of material abandonment and/or moral danger. Such children are
catered for by 35 operational
units (25 children’s homes and 10
children’s centres) and in 23 zones and 104 sub-zones of intervention
at the national
level, where assistance is rendered to working children and
street children in 102 referral and care centres.
Operational
policy
178. The operational policy is carried out by street teachers
in the locations where working children and street children are
found.
179. These activities are carried on in markets and the streets
and in mines, quarries and brickworks and other places where the work
is
hazardous or is performed in hazardous conditions, such as work in the early
hours of the morning, mining, small-scale manufacture
of bricks, fish filleting,
refuse collection, etc.
180. The objective is “to contribute to the
integrated development of working children and street children by means of
unconventional
training imparted by street teachers”.
181. All the
work with these children is organized into three stages, through which the
children advance as they show some signs of
progress.
182. Although the
children are the direct beneficiaries, work is also done from the outset with
families and grass-roots institutions
with a view to creating a network of
social support to guarantee the sustainability of the results achieved by the
teaching work.
Location of centres throughout the country
Operational protection policy
183. This policy is
executed by children’s homes in closed or semi-open facilities housing
children who have been physically,
materially or morally abandoned and is
designed to provide them with a protected environment which will foster their
personal and
social development. The method of operation in the homes is
divided into four stages and is designed to secure the children’s
reintegration in their families and/or communities by means of personal training
and work with the families themselves.
Family Support
Division
184. This Division is the INBIF line agency responsible
for promoting, managing and supervising the preventive and support work with
families living in poverty or at social risk by means of programmes for the
promotion of human development and family integration
and training to generate
income to help to improve the quality of life.
185. The target
population consists of children, young people, women, adults and old people
living in poverty or in situations of social risk in urban, marginal
urban and
rural areas.
186. The Division has the following
policies:
(a) To promote human development;
(b) To
promote family integration;
(b) To provide training for income
generation.
187. The general objective is to help to
improve the quality of life of the target population by means of preventive and
promotional measures to foster integrated
development, gender equity and
equality of opportunities.
188. The family support centres
are housed in premises which are owned by INABIF or which it is allowed to use
in marginal urban and rural areas, where it furnishes
services for people living
in poverty or at social risk.
189. The community centres
are housed in premises in the community, where INABIF carries out a
programme of social measures to improve the people’s quality
of life by
encouraging self-management and active participation by grass-roots
organizations in the solution of their immediate problems.
The work is focused
mainly on services for children.
Population at Risk
Division
190. The main aim is to coordinate the public welfare
associations (SBP) and social participation boards (JPS). These associations
and boards provide assistance in the following modes, in accordance with their
statutory purposes:
(a) Food aid is provided through the canteens for
children, adults and old people;
(b) Health care is furnished in medical
consultation offices and/or treatment centres;
(c) Educational work is performed in nurseries, kindergartens and other
children’s institutions;
(d) Training is provided for children in children’s centres, shelters,
dressmaking workshops, carpentry workshops, etc.;
(e) Assistance is provided for adults in children’s centres, shelters,
dressmaking workshops, carpentry shops, etc.;
(f) Donation of cemetery
niches, medicines, clothing, school kits, etc.
191. The following table
shows that the mode with the largest number of beneficiaries is health care,
followed by donations and food
aid; together they account for 92.8 per cent of
the beneficiaries.
Population catered to by the SPB and JPS, by mode of
assistance[80]
Mode of attention
|
Beneficiaries
|
Percentage
|
Health care
|
75 521
|
45.0
|
Donations
|
63 106
|
37.6
|
Food aid
|
17 104
|
10.2
|
Educational work
|
3 929
|
2.3
|
Other modes
|
4 008
|
2.4
|
Children’s training
|
2 137
|
1.3
|
Assistance for adults
|
2 125
|
1.3
|
Total
|
167 930
|
100
|
Street
children[81]
192. Most
street children are from broken or dysfunctional homes from which they have
become totally or partially alienated and in
which maltreatment is a constant.
They will usually have dropped out of school as well (if indeed they went to
school), for it is
generally very difficult for them combine school with living
in the street owing to the demands that street life makes on their time.
They
thus have the additional problem of exclusion from the formal education
system.
2. The right to participate
193. Where
participation and the freedom of expression are concerned, Peru needs to
strengthen the associations and the organizational
projects for children and
promote the formation of groups in which children enjoy independence and can
pursue their own interests,
for the approach taken thus far by the State and
society has been “tutelary”, regarding children not as subjects of
rights
but rather as merely passive beneficiaries of programmes designed to
reproduce adult models of organization.
194. With regard to grass-roots
vigilance and involvement, it must be pointed out that ignorance of the rights
of the child is widespread
and that there is an urgent need to promote the
delivery of these rights. It is vital to promote and establish, in a
coordinated
manner, mechanisms of social supervision by civil society, for this
is the only way to guarantee the advancement and protection of
children’s
rights. The State is encouraging such a development through the Network of
Teenage Leaders.
Network of teenage leaders (RLA)
This Network was created in November 1997 on the initiative of the drug
abuse prevention unit of the MIMDES Division for the Welfare
of Children and
Adolescents; it began to work with young leaders, initially to prevent drug use
and promote leadership among adolescent
children and subsequently to implement
comprehensive prevention measures for and by adolescents, with financial support
from the
Narcotics Affairs Section of the United States Embassy.
Young people were trained as comprehensive prevention agents to work with
their peers. Twelve RLA offices were established for this
purpose (six in Lima
and six in the provinces) and as a means of providing opportunities for
discussion and the formulation of proposals
for development work with
adolescents and the community in accordance with the RLA working
procedures.
Definition
The Network is a democratic space in which adolescent children are the main
protagonists and where they have opportunities to devise,
plan and carry out
activities to support the social development of their communities and in
particular their own development, taking
the “equal among equals”
approach.
Objectives
Present situation
Three hundred teenage leaders are promoting the active participation of
their peers in local facilities in Lima (in four locations
so far: the districts
of Jesús María, Los Olivos, El Agustino and San Luis) and in the
provinces in Arequipa, Tacna,
Chimbote, Trujillo, Ayacucho and Pisco, where
these leaders have been developing social skills in the leadership of adolescent
children
and as providers of instruction in such matters as reproductive health
and career planning.
These RLA facilities are currently being transferred to the local and
regional authorities, which will furnish them with the necessary
logistical
support, always subject to technical advice from MIMDES.
|
3. The children’s ombudsmen
195. The children’s
ombudsmen are a service provided by the National System for the Comprehensive
Care of Children and Adolescents;
they operate through local government, private
and public institutions, and organizations of civil society. Their purpose is
to
promote and protect the rights which the law accords to
children.
196. What principles guide their work?
197. The functions of children’s ombudsmen
are set out in article 45 of the new Children’s and
Adolescents’ Code:
198. What are the basic methods used by the
children’s ombudsmen in their work?
199. Where are
ombudsman offices to be found? In various institutions. We therefore
talk about different models of ombudsman office, depending on the institution
which sets it
up:
(a) Offices in primary and secondary schools;
(b) Offices attached to churches (Catholic and others);
(c) Offices established by grass-roots social organizations;
(d) Offices established by NGOs;
(e) Municipal offices (known as DEMUNAs), which operate in provincial and
district municipalities and in smaller
settlements.
200. Although these types of ombudsman office are the
best-known, there are others such as the ones in health centres, police
stations,
etc.
201. Who may have recourse to an ombudsman?
202. How are the offices staffed?
An office may
be staffed by professionals or other persons from the community having a basic
knowledge of the service. They may
also have the assistance of persons who have
been trained in the operation of this service. However, with a view to
establishing
an operating procedure which works in practice, an office may have
the following structure:
A leader: a person of standing in the community. He or she may be a representative of an institution or organization of civil society elected to this post.
Ombudsmen: professionals from any discipline, preferably one related to the human or social sciences. In places where there are no professionals or in institutions which by their nature do not have any professionals among their members, the ombudsmen may be persons of standing in the community duly accredited to perform their functions.
Field workers: local children and adults who have been trained to perform the service’s functions and have voluntarily taken on this responsibility and a commitment to uphold the service’s statutes and operations.
Support staff: administrative and professional personnel who
collaborate with the service without having the status of leader, ombudsman or
field
worker.
203. What work do the offices do?
They promote rights: they carry out organized and planned activities
to inform and educate the various sectors of society and to raise their
awareness
of the rights of the child. They try to persuade people to change
their ways of thinking and their attitudes and practices with
respect to the
situation of children by taking on board the importance of the exercise of
children’s rights.
They take up cases: they may take a number of measures to ensure that situations or problems which may affect the exercise of a child’s rights are resolved.
They offer guidance: members of the offices provide information of
various kinds concerning general or specific topics.
204. With respect to
which problems may the offices intervene?
Through the conciliation
mechanism
The offices may intervene when the following types of problem arise,
provided that there are no legal proceedings in progress or
concluded in the
same case and no crime or misdemeanour has been committed:
Maintenance: this covers everything necessary for the sustenance,
shelter, education, instruction and job training, medical care, and recreation
of a child, or of a pregnant woman, from conception to the post-partum
period.
Custody: this is the responsibility assumed by one of a child’s
parents to attend to his or her comprehensive development when the parents
are
actually separated. A mother or father who cedes the custody of a child does
not lose parental authority.
Rights of access: a father or mother who is not living with a child
does have visiting rights; visiting days and times are established by agreement
between the parties.
Through administrative action
Late registration of birth: this means regularizing a child’s
registration in the Register of Births and the National Register of Identity and
Civil Status
(RENIEC). This procedure is followed when the 30 days stipulated
by law have expired. Ombudsmen have a number of ways of helping
people to apply
for late registration.
School enrolment at the correct time: action by an ombudsman to
ensure that a child is enrolled at the correct age and time. Ombudsmen may make
representations to the
school authorities or the Parents’ Association
(APAFA) to allow a child to exercise the right to education by making
arrangements
for his or her enrolment even when some of the enrolment
requirements are not met.
Correction of birth certificates: correction of the information
contained in a child’s birth certificate as recorded in the Register of
Births and the National
Register of Identity and Civil Status (RENIEC).
Ombudsmen have a number of ways of helping people to apply for such correction
to
the civil registration authorities or to a court.
Medical care: coordination by an ombudsman with the corresponding
health facilities to obtain prompt medical treatment for achild.
Arbitrary detention: no one may be detained except on one of the
following two grounds:
(a) Detection in flagrante
delicto;
(b) Court order.
If a child is detained except on one of these grounds, an ombudsman may take
the necessary action to secure the child’s immediate
release, such as
seeking a writ of habeas corpus before the competent authority. The ombudsmen
offer a mode of alternative or extra-judicial
justice which facilitates
democratic access to justice; they thus promote and defend the rights of the
child by means of conciliation
and negotiated agreements. It is calculated that
they deal with 100,000 cases a year, a figure illustrating the importance of
this
service.
Growth of ombudsman offices, 1996-2002
Source: Ombudsman Service, Division for the Welfare of Children and
Adolescents - MIMDES.
F. Special legislation and
justice[82]
1. Progress
in the incorporation of international treaties in national
law
205. Article 55 of the current Constitution states: “The
treaties concluded by the State which are in force shall form part of national
law”; incorporation requires
approval by a legislative decision of the
Congress prior to ratification by the President of the Republic in a supreme
decree.
206. The status of the international instruments relating to
children incorporated in national legislation is given below, in chronological
order:
Convention on the Rights of the Child
Organization: United Nations
Date of adoption: 20 November 1989
Signature: 26 January 1990
Approval: Legislative Decision No. 25278
Deposit of instrument of ratification: 4 September
1990
Amendment to article 43, paragraph 2, of the Convention on
the Rights of the Child
Organization: United Nations
Date of adoption: 12 December 1995
Approval: Legislative Decision No. 27196
Ratification: Supreme Decree No. 061-99-RE 17-11-1999
Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child
Abduction
Organization: United Nations
Date and place of adoption: The Hague, 25 October 1980
Approval: Legislative Decision No. 27302
Ratification: Supreme Decree No. 023-2000-RE
Submission of instrument of ratification: 3 May 2001
Optional
Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of
children in armed conflict and Optional Protocol
to the Convention on the Rights
of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child
pornography
Organization: United Nations
Date of adoption: 1 November 2000
Approval: Legislative Decision No. 27518
Ratification: Supreme Decree No. 078-2001-RE
Deposit of instrument of ratification: 8 May 2002
ILO Minimum
Age Convention (No. 138)
Organization ILO
Date of adoption: 26 June 1973
Approval: Legislative Decision No. 27453
ILO Worst Forms
of Child Labour Convention (No. 182)
Organization: ILO
Date of adoption: 1 June 1999
Approval: Legislative Decision No. 27543
Ratification: Supreme Decree No. 087-2001-RE
The Hague
Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction
Article 6 of this Convention provides that a Contracting State shall designate a Central Authority to discharge the duties which are imposed by the Convention upon such authorities. The Peruvian State has therefore designated, by Ministerial Decision No. 206-2002-PROMUDEH, the Division for the Welfare of Children and Adolescents as the body which shall discharge the duties of Central Authority, representing the Ministry for Women and Social Development.
The Division has been discharging the duties of Central Authority, basically in accordance with articles 7 and 11 of the Convention, both as requesting Authority and as requested Authority; in other words, it has been taking the necessary steps to ensure the immediate return of children, when this is required, and to secure the best interests of the child by promoting amicable settlements and maintaining to this end smooth communications with the central authorities of the other signatory States.
The objective of the Convention is to ensure that rights of custody and rights of access are effectively exercised in the signatory States and that neither parent or any other relative uses communication routes and the possibility of crossing frontiers to retain or remove a child or infringes the rights established by law, by treaty or by the courts to the detriment of a father, mother or other relative.
According to the Convention, rights of custody includes rights relating to the care of the person of the child, in particular the right to determine the child’s place of residence (these rights are assimilated in Peruvian legislation to rights of “tenencia”), while rights of access include the right to take a child for a limited period of time to a place other than the child’s habitual residence (these rights are known in Peruvian legislation as the “régimen de visitas”).
The following are the main functions of the Central Authority: (1) to verify movements in and out of the country by a child or abductor; (2) to establish the exact whereabouts of a child or abductor; and (3) to transmit requests to the judicial authorities of Peru or to the Central Authority of another country.
The Division has taken up eight cases of abduction since the end of January
2002.
2. The Children’s and Adolescents’
Code
207. Following ratification of the Convention on the Rights of
the Child and the revision of the Children’s and Adolescents’
Code
in 1993, the institution of procurator for children and adolescents was created
and the juvenile courts became children’s
and adolescents’ courts -
now the family procurators and family courts - to deal with reports of
maltreatment and neglect and
domestic violence.
208. Where the law is
concerned, Peru must continue its efforts to bring its national legislation
relating to children into line with
the international instruments which it has
signed and ratified and with the requirements of the development of this social
sector
and to fill the gaps in laws and regulations.
209. An
intersectoral commission has been revising the current Children’s and
Adolescents’ Code; although this exercise
is producing innovative changes
in such areas as the special care of children with disabilities, judicial
procedures applicable to
juveniles, and alternatives to deprivation of liberty,
it is also revealing gaps and legal contradictions and introducing retrogressive
provisions: for example, the incorporation of the offence of pernicious gang
violence (pandillaje pernicioso), which increases the punishment which
may be imposed on juveniles to six years’ internment. The revision also
disregards
measures to guarantee the rights of vulnerable children, such as
children suffering from sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS
or cancer. The
Code also has gaps with respect to specific programmes for child victims of
sexual exploitation.
3. Juvenile offenders
210. The Code
provides for the application to juveniles of alternatives to deprivation of
liberty.
211. However, the application to juvenile offenders of the
non-internment alternatives provided for in the Code is not widespread.
According to the statistics, as of December 2001 there were 987 juvenile
offenders (66 per cent of the current total of convicted
juveniles) held in
prison but only 508 (34 per cent) under an open
regime;[83] this confirms the
need to increase the use of socio-educational and reintegration measures which
make it easier for juvenile offenders
to continue their lives in society and the
family.
Legal status of juvenile offenders[84]
Total cases
Convictions
Awaiting trial
|
1,495
54%
46%
|
212. The application of socio-educational measures to juvenile offenders
is vital to the attainment of the goals of rehabilitation
and reintegration,
which are more important than the goals of prevention and punishment, for such
measures have helped to create
in these juveniles an awareness of their
responsibility for their actions.
213. The Judiciary’s Juvenile
Centres Division has nine closed facilities, one of which is intended
exclusively for juvenile
offenders, and one open facility, known as the
Adolescents Guidance Centre, for the enforcement of sentences of supervised
liberty
(libertad asistida).
214. The lack of juvenile centres in
some areas in the interior of the country causes difficulties in the
administration of justice
when socio-educational internment measures are
ordered. In such cases the juveniles are transferred to facilities far from
their
homes; the situation is worse in the case of juveniles convicted of
crimes, who are transferred to Lima.
215. The streamlining of the
procedures of the administration of juvenile justice is something to be
considered. In 2000 for example,
out of a total of 3,387 juvenile offenders
held in juvenile centres only 1,722 had been convicted, and 1,665 were awaiting
trial.[85]
Juveniles deprived of liberty for criminal offences
|
1995
|
1996
|
1997
|
1998
|
1999
|
2000
|
Male
|
579
|
577
|
438
|
-
|
606
|
839
|
Female
|
30
|
31
|
29
|
-
|
30
|
40
|
Total
|
609
|
608
|
467
|
-
|
636
|
879
|
Source: El Sistema Penal Juvenil en el Perú (The
Juvenile Justice System in Peru). Ombudsman’s Office. October
2000.
4. Gang violence
216. Under the current Pernicious Gang
Violence Act (Legislative Decree No. 899) the sole available penalty is
imprisonment for a
term of between three and six years. Experience has shown
that the intensification of the State’s repressive approach to juvenile
violence has not checked this social problem.
217. The Children’s
and Adolescents’ Code defines a pernicious gang as a group of adolescents
aged 12 to 17 years who
act together to attack third persons, injure their
physical integrity or threaten their lives, to damage public or private
property,
or to commit disorderly acts which disrupt the public order. However,
despite the characterization of such acts as crimes in the
Code, the problem has
not declined; this prompts the conclusion that it is not sufficient to punish
such crimes but that alternative
means of tackling the problem must be sought,
such as prevention and the treatment and rehabilitation of
offenders.
218. According to the Office of Civic Participation of the
National Police, 400 gangs had been identified in Lima and Callao as of
February
2000, with a membership of about 12,950 persons, including juveniles and adults.
Of this total, 88 per cent (11,396) were
aged under 24.
IV. MATRIX OF THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
INCORPORATED
WITH THE PNAI 2002-2010
219. This matrix is the outcome of the incorporation the matrix for
monitoring the PNAI
2002-2010[86] of the
fundamental rights established in the Convention on the Rights of the
Child.[87]
220. The
purpose of the matrix is to compare the outcomes envisaged in the PNAI with the
current position of the indicators of the
progress made in the delivery of the
rights recognized in the Convention. Although indicators of the delivery of
these rights have
been established, it has not yet proved possible to determine
the current position of some of them, even though the various public
agencies
working on children’s issues contributed to the formulation of the PNAI.
However, qualitative descriptions have been
produced and, with a view to
ensuring that the data on which the descriptions are based are as accurate as
possible, sources were
requested to supply the most up-to-date, reliable and
official figures.
221. The matrix will certainly offer a fuller and more
reliable picture of the progress made in the delivery of these rights by the
Peruvian State in accordance with the Constitution.
PNAI outcomes
|
Targets
|
Indicators
|
Current position
|
Information source
|
Agencies responsible
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. The right to life
Human life is the period of time lived by a person from conception in
the womb until death and consists of the manifestation and
activities of a human
being. Once conceived, every child has the right to life; article 6 of the
Convention therefore declares this
right to be an inherent right.
|
|||||
O1. Conditions for healthy and safe maternity and childbirth
|
T1. To cut the maternal mortality rate to no higher than 80 per 100,000
live births
|
I.1 Maternal mortality rate
|
In 2000 the maternal mortality rate was 185 per 100,000 live births
(ENDES-2000)
|
Direct R.1: MINSA, MINEDU, churches, Ministry of Justice, Attorney-General, prefectures, municipalities, ombudsmen, MCLP, MIMDES Support R1: UNFPA, PAHO, WHO, international cooperation, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families |
|
T1.2 To cut the perinatal mortality rate to no higher than 15 per 1,000
live births
|
I1.2 Tasa de mortalidad perinatal.
|
In 2000, 55% of deaths of children aged under 12 months occurred during the
first month of life. The perinatal mortality rate is
23 per 1,000 pregnancies
lasting seven months or longer. The rate for women aged 40-49 is 47 per 1,000
and aged 20-29 18 per 1,000
(ENDES-2000)
|
S1.2.2 RENIEC Register of Births and Deaths
|
||
T1.3 The maternal mortality rate to be no higher than 120 per 100,000 live
births in any province in any of the country’s poor
regions
|
I1.3 The maternal mortality rate by province
|
In 2000 Puno and Amazonas had a maternal mortality rate of over 300 per
100,000 live births (ENDES-2000)
|
S1.3.1 ENDES-INEI survey
|
||
T1.4 The perinatal mortality rate to be no higher than 22 per 1,000 in any
province in any of the country’s poor regions
|
I1.4 Perinatal mortality rate by province
|
The highest perinatal mortality rates are for women living in the
departments of Pasco and Cuzco, with 40 and 48 deaths respectively
for every
1,000 pregnancies lasting seven months or longer. The rate for Cuzco (48 per
1,000) is five times the rate for Tacna (10
per 1,000), which has the lowest
rate of any department (ENDES-2000).
|
S1.4.1 ENDES-INEI surveys
S1.4.2 RENIEC Register of Births and Deaths |
||
T1.5 To ensure that the coverage of institutional childbirth reaches 90%
of all pregnancies and is no lower than 50 % in any province
in any of the
country’s poor regions
|
I1.5 Proportion of live births taking place in health facilities
|
In 2000 the coverage was 58%. Huancavelica had the lowest rate of
coverage, at 19% (ENDES-2000)
|
S1.5.1 ENDES-INEI surveys
S1.5.2 RENIEC Register of Births and Deaths |
||
T1.6 To improve technical capacity, treatment and standards in 100% of the
health and education services for pregnant women
|
I1.6 Numbers of health establishments which meet defined standards for
quality of care
|
The widest antenatal-care coverage is found in Lima (96%). The departments
with the lowest rates are Amazonas, Loreto and Huánaco,
with 61, 64 and
66 per cent respectively. The average is 77 per cent (ENDES-2000)
|
S1.6.1 MINSA
|
||
T1.7 To equip 70 per cent of schools with institutional education
projects on the content of sex education, prevention of risky
sexual behaviour,
antenatal care and feeding of infants
|
I1.7 Proportion of schools equipped with institutional education projects
on sex education, prevention of risky sexual behaviour,
personal care and
feeding of infants
|
|
S1.7.1 MINEDU
|
||
T1.8 To deal promptly with 100 per cent cases of violence against pregnant
women reported by the police, health centres, the Attorney-General,
the
Judiciary, children’s ombudsmen and PROMUDEH
|
I1.8 Proportion of cases of violence against pregnant women dealt with
promptly when reported by the police, health centres, the
Attorney-General, the
Judiciary and children’s ombudsmen
|
Forty-one per cent of women who were in a relationship at some time have
been shoved, beaten or otherwise physically assaulted by
the spouse or partner,
83 per cent occasionally and a significant 16 per cent frequently
(ENDES-2000)
|
S1.8.1 MINSA
|
||
T1.9 To bring 85 per cent of pregnant women in extremely poor areas into
the supplementary food programmes
|
I1.9 Proportion of pregnant women in extremely poor areas using the
supplementary food programmes
|
|
S1.9.1 INEI household surveys
S1.9.2 MINSA |
||
T1.10 To provide 95 per cent of pregnant women in all provinces with
access to antenatal services aimed at the care of women and
early development
and growth
|
I1.10 Proportion of live births with antenatal checks
|
|
S1.10.1 ENDES-INEI surveys
S1.10.2 MINSA |
||
T.1.11 To invest health services in the poorest areas with the capacity to
act independently to provide safe childbirth services
using scientific methods
and good practices, with respect for local culture
|
I1.11 Proportion of health services in extremely poor areas having the
capacity to act independently to provide safe childbirth services
using
scientific methods and good practices, with respect for local culture
|
|
S1.11.1 MINSA
|
||
O5 Guaranteed conditions for children to exercise the right to life
|
T5.1.1 To cut infant mortality to no higher than 20 per 1,000 live births
and mortality among under-fives to no higher than 30 per
1,000, and to ensure
that no province in any of the country’s poor areas has an infant
mortality rate higher than 27 per 1,000
or an under-fives mortality rate higher
than 40 per 1,000
|
I5.1.1 Infant mortality rates
|
Between 1991 and 2000 the national infant mortality rate was reduced from
52 to 33 per 1,000 live births. Sixty out of every 1,000
babies born alive died
every year in rural areas and 28 per 1,000 in urban areas (2000). The annual
infant mortality rate is estimated
to exceed 19,000; 8,000 of these deaths occur
during the first week of life and more than half (55%) during the first month.
Children
of mothers without any education are three times more likely to die
than children of mothers with higher education (ENDES-2000)
|
S5.1.1.1 INEI surveys and mortality tables
|
Direct R5: MINSA, local authorities, PCM, CTARs,
MCLPC
Support R5: PAHO, WHO, UNICEF, international cooperation, communication media, prefectures, NGOs, churches |
I5.1.2 Mortality rate among under-fives
|
The probability of a child’s dying before age five was reduced from
73 to 47 per 1,000 live births between 1990-1995 and 1995-2000,
i.e. by about 36
per cent.
|
S5.1.2.1 INEI surveys and life tables
|
|||
2. The right to an identity
This right means that no one may alter the set of physical and mental
attributes and other characteristics which identify a person
in society. i.e.
that every person is “a self” and not “another” in his
or her capacity as a valid human
being having a unique and irreproducible
individuality vis-à-vis his or her fellow human beings. This right also
includes:
The right to a name. This right means the individual identification of a
child by means of a distinctive appellation consisting
of a linguistic
expression designating the person and differentiating one person from another,
including the surnames of the parents.
The right to a nationality. This right embraces the relationship of rights
and duties of a child with a given State, either because
the child was born in
the State’s territory or because his or her parents were born there.
|
|||||
O.2 To establish a universal right to a name and an identity for all
children
|
T2.1 One hundred per cent of all infants to be registered before the age
of three months
|
I2.1 Proportion of children aged one year entered in the Register
|
(1) According to UNICEF, 15 per cent of Peru’s children are not
registered (equivalent to 110,000 babies) (El Peruano, 24 October
2000)
(2) Non-registrations totalled nine per cent in 2000 (La Exclusión Social en el Perú. UNICEF. Lima, June 2001). (3) In 1993, 438 of the 1,145 indigenous communities surveyed had a registry office, but only 372 were operating, and only for the registration of births. Leaders of indigenous organizations estimated that 40 per cent of the total indigenous population was not registered (UNICEF, idem.) |
S2.1.1 INEI surveys S2.1.2 RENIEC S2.1.3 MINSA
|
Direct R2: MINSA, local authorities, RENIEC, PROMUDEH,
children’s ombudsmen, MCLP
Support R2: UNFPA, PAHO, WHO, UNICEF, international cooperation, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, communication media, families |
T2.2 To ensure that 100 per cent of children, including children not
registered before the expiry of the three-month limit, have
an identity
document
|
I2.2 Proportion of children in the first grade possessing an identity
document
|
Title 5, article 31, of the RENIEC Act (No. 26497)
|
S2.2.1 MINED
S2.2.2 RENIEC |
||
T2.3 All health centres and children’s rights monitors to be in a
position to provide systematic guidance for parents on the
procedures for the
prompt registration of their babies
|
I2.3 Proportion of health centres and human rights monitors providing
systematic guidance for parents on the prompt registration
of their babies
|
See regulations on the registration of births and late registration
(National Register of Identity and Civil Status Act (No. 26497)
|
S2.3.1 MINSA
S2.3.2 MIMDES |
||
T2.4 All services for the registration and identification of children to
be provided free of charge nation-wide
|
I2.4 Proportion of services for the registration and identification of
children provided free of charge
|
|
S2.4.1 RENIEC
|
||
3. The right to a family environment
This right refers to the right of children to grow and develop
within a group of persons united by marriage or created by a de facto
union,
between whom legal rights and obligations exist. In fact, all children need a
home to shelter them and in which they can
freely develop their physical selves,
their emotional and affective lives and their intimate relationships in the
company of those
persons to whom they are bound by blood and by parental
affection. According to the 1993 Constitution, the family and marriage
constitute one of the fundamental and natural institutions of society
|
|||||
National Secretariat for Adoptions
|
Although 2,272 children were formally adopted in the period 1993-2002, some
eight per cent of households have a child aged under 15
years living with them
as “adopted” children; these are children who do not live with
either of their biological parents
even when they are alive. The proportion is
higher in rural areas (9%) than in urban areas (7%).
To date, the Secretariat has 10 local offices nation-wide, in the departments of Arequipa, Ayacucho, Cuzco, Huánuco, Lambayeque, La Libertad, Moquegua, Loreto, Piura and Puno; a further 13 local offices are needed to secure total coverage |
MIMDES
|
|
||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
4. The right to education
This right means opportunities to receive and transmit information and knowledge with a view to preparing people to perform certain actions and form relations with other persons, and opportunities of access to the necessary guidance and advice for the integrated development of the person. |
|||||
O7. Integrated development of children from an early age
|
T7.1.1 To ensure the participation of 60 per cent of children aged up to
three years in institutional programmes of early stimulation
|
I7.1 Proportion of children aged up to three years participating in
institutional programmes of early stimulation
|
(1) The direct and indirect attention given to children of this age is
insufficient (it is the age of greatest risk and the age of
the flowering of the
various potentials of human beings). In 1999 the coverage totalled 41.5 %
(Strategic Sectoral Education Plan
2002-2006)
(2) In 2001, 50,000 children were catered for in Wawa Wasi centres nation-wide (Wawa Wasi Programme). |
S7.1.1 MINEDU S7.1.2 INEI survey
|
Direct R7: MINSA, MIMDES, MINEDU, MCLCP, education associations Support R7: Children’s ombudsmen, INR, universities, communication media, vocational schools, NGOs |
T7.2.2 To ensure that 80 per cent of children aged three to five have
access to an initial education programme
|
I7.2 Proportion of children enrolling in the first grade who have received
initial education
|
The net attendance rates for initial education are as follows: four years -
boys 49.5 and girls 53 %; five years - boys 66 and girls
69 %. The figures by
geographical region are: Metropolitan Lima - 50 %; rest of the coast - 51 %;
mountains - 40 %; and forests
- 47.5 % (Strategic Sectoral Education Plan
2002-2006)
|
S7.2.1 MINEDU S7.2.2 INEI surveys
|
||
T7.3.3 To ensure that persons with disabilities and their families and
advocates have access at all stages to full information about
diagnosis and
entitlements and the available services and programmes
|
I7.3 Proportion of households with a disabled member who have access at
all stages to full information about diagnosis and entitlements
and the
available services and programmes
|
|
S7.3.1 INEI surveys
|
||
T7.4.4 To ensure that 70 per cent of the initial education programmes
available to extremely poor children provide coordinated health,
nutrition and
education services
|
I7.4 Proportion of initial education programmes available to extremely
poor children which provide coordinated health, nutrition
and education
services
|
|
S7.4.1 MINEDU
|
||
T7.5.5 To ensure by 2010 that 60 per cent of children attending programmes
of education for development exhibit a high level of social
and emotional
development
|
I7.5 Proportion of children exhibiting a high level of social and
emotional development
|
|
S7.5.1 MINEDU
|
||
T7.6.6 To ensure by 2010 that 80 per cent of State early education
programmes have the means of evaluating and promoting optimum
levels of child
development in various areas of performance
|
I7.6 Proportion of early education programmes producing evaluations of
children’s educational performance and development
|
|
S7.6.1 MINEDU
|
||
O8. To guarantee good-quality cross-cultural basic education for all
children
|
T8.1 To ensure that 85 per cent of children aged six to 12 are enrolled in
the correct grade
|
I8.1 Proportion of children aged six to 12 enrolled in the correct grade
for their age
|
The ratio of over-age pupils in rural and urban areas is 2:1. In rural
areas 23 per cent of pupils in primary education are over-age
for their grade,
while the urban rate is 14 per cent. The following are some of the attendance
rates for boys and girls aged six to 12 at the level corresponding to
their age: Metropolitan Lima - boys 58 and girls 61.5 per cent; rest of the
coast - boys
49 and girls 61 per cent; forests - boys 44.5 and girls 48 per cent
(Strategic Sectoral Education Plan 2002-2006)
|
S8.1.1 MINEDU S8.1.2 INEI surveys
|
Direct R8: MINEDU, education associations, MCLCP
Support R8: UNICEF, UNESCO, international cooperation, mass media, universities, grass-roots indigenous organizations, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families |
T8.2 To ensure that 85 per cent of children complete primary or basic
education
|
I8.2 Proportion of children aged 12 to 14 with complete primary education
or at least one year of secondary education
|
In 1999-2000 the graduation rate from primary education was 88 per cent;
the repeated-year rate was nine per cent and the drop-out
rate three per cent
(Peru in Numbers statistical yearbook 2001. Lima, September 2001)
|
S8.2.1 INEI surveys
|
||
T8.4 To ensure that 90 per cent of rural girls attend and complete the six
years of primary education
|
I8.4 Proportion of rural girls aged 12 to 14 with complete primary
education or at least one year of secondary education
|
(1) Five per cent of poor girls do not go to school; the figure is 10 per
cent for extremely poor girls
(2) There are only 26,586 rural schools for 75,000 small settlements (1998) (3) In urban areas boys attend school for an average of 9.3 years, slightly longer than girls (8.1 years). The average for rural girls is 2.9 years, and the gap between urban and rural girls widened from 4.5 years in 1996 to 5.2 years in 2000. Similarly, the average for rural boys is longer at 4.7 years than the average of 2.9 years for rural girls, but the gap widened from 1.5 years in 1996 to 1.8 years in 2000 (ENDES-2000) |
S8.4.1 INEI survey
|
||
T8.5 To ensure that 75 per cent of children achieve the basic educational
standards. The average level of achievement to be no lower
than 60 per cent in
any province in any of the country’s non-excluded regions
|
I8.5 Proportion of children in the sixth grade of primary education
attaining the basic educational standards
|
In 1997 Peru occupied last place in mathematics and second-last place in
language among the countries of Latin America in an international
assessment of
pupils in the third and fourth primary grades made by UNESCO (Strategic Sectoral
Education Plan 2002-2006)
|
S8.5.1 MINEDU
|
||
T8.6 To achieve by 2010 an increase of five per cent in the number of
sixth-graders passing the Academic Performance Test in rural
and urban
areas
|
I8.6 Proportion of sixth-graders passing the Academic Performance
Test
|
|
S8.6.1 MINEDU
|
||
T8.7 To ensure that the primary enrolment and retention rates are no lower
than 85 per cent in any province in any of the country’s
excluded
regions
|
I8.7 Proportion of children aged 12 to 14 with complete primary education
or at least one year of secondary education
|
The graduation rate from primary education was 88 per cent in 1999-2000;
the repeated-year rate was nine per cent and the drop-out
rate three per cent
(Peru in Numbers statistical yearbook 2001. Lima, September 2001)
|
S8.7.1 INEI surveys
|
||
T8.8 To ensure by 2010 that at least 60 per cent of children aged three to
five who have attended initial education have developed
social, cognitive and
communication skills
|
I8.8 Proportion of children successful completing the first grade of
primary school
|
According to the 2000 Census of Schools, 89 per cent of pupils complete the
first grade of primary school successfully
|
S8.8.1 MINEDU
|
||
O9 Elimination of the worst forms of child labour and promotion of
educational alternatives to such labour
|
T9.4 To introduce mechanisms to retain working children in the education
system and reduce their drop-out rate
|
I9.4 Existence of a mechanism to retain working children in the education
system and reduce their drop-out rate
|
|
S9.4.1 MINEDU
|
Direct R9: MINEDU
|
O10 Good-quality secondary education
|
T10.1 To ensure that 80 per cent of children completing secondary
education do so at the correct age
|
I10.1 Proportion of persons aged 17 to 20 with complete secondary
education or at least one year of higher education
|
The over-age rate in secondary education is 28 per cent in rural areas and
20 per cent in urban areas (ENDES-2000)
|
S10.1.1 INEI survey
|
Direct R10: MINEDU, education associations, MCLCP
Support R10: UNESCO, international cooperation, mass media, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, youth organizations |
T10.2 The completion rate in secondary education to be no lower than 80
per cent in any province in any of the country’s poor
regions
|
I10.2 proportion of persons aged 17 to 20 with complete secondary
education or at least one year of higher education
|
The secondary graduation rate was 89 per cent in 1999-2000; the
repeated-year rate was seven per cent and the drop-out rate four per
cent
(Peru in Numbers statistical yearbook 2001. Lima, September 2001)
|
S10.2.1 INEI survey
|
||
T10.5 To ensure by 2005 that the humans rights course is fully
incorporated in the curriculum of all the country’s public and
private
schools
|
I10.5 Existence of a one-year course on human rights
|
|
S10.5.1 MINEDU
|
||
O11 Reduced teenage pregnancy rate
|
T11.3 To ensure that 70 per cent of schools have institutional teaching
projects on the content of sex education, gender equity,
prevention of risky
sexual behaviour, antenatal care, and comprehensive care of children
|
I11.3.1 Proportion of schools with institutional teaching projects on the
content of sex education, gender equity, prevention of
risky sexual behaviour,
antenatal care, and comprehensive care of children
|
|
S11.3 MINEDU
|
Direct R11: MINEDU, MINSA, education associations, MIMDES, PNP,
MCLCP
Support R11: UNFPA, children’s ombudsmen, communication media, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, youth organizations |
T11.4 To ensure that no pregnant teenagers give up school for reasons
connected with their personal situation
|
I11.4.1 Cases of teenage or other females of childbearing age who give up
school for reasons connected with their pregnancy
I11.4.2 Pregnancy rate in the schools |
(1) Twenty-three per cent of adolescents, most of them girls, do not
attend school
(2) Article 14 of the Children’s and Adolescents’ Code (ENDES-2000) |
S11.4 MINEDU
|
||
O12 Reduction of STI and HIV/AIDS among adolescents
|
T12.1 To reduce by 50 per cent the incidence of STI and HIV/AIDS among
adolescents
|
I12.1.1 Adolescent STI rates.
I12.1.2 Incidence of HIV/AIDS among adolescents |
(1) The male to female ratio of AIDS sufferers is 3:1.2; as of December
1999 there were 4,500 children aged under 15 living with
HIV/AIDS
(ENDES-2000)
|
S12.1.1 MINSA
|
Direct R12: MINSA, MINEDU, education associations, MIMDES,
MCLCP
Support R12: UNFPA, PAHO/WHO, CONFIEP, communication media, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, youth organizations |
T12.2 To ensure that 100 per cent of adolescents and secondary teachers
have acquired knowledge and skills connected with sex education
and are aware of
the risks of STI and HIV/AIDS
|
I12.2.1 Proportion of adolescents who have knowledge and skills connected
with sex education and are aware of the risks of STI and
HIV/AIDS
I12.2.2 Proportion of secondary teachers who have adequate knowledge and skills connected with sex education and are aware of the risks of STI and HIV/AIDS |
|
S12.2.1 MINSA S12.2.2 MINEDU S12.2.3 ENDES/INEI surveys
|
||
5. The right to health
This means the right of all children to maintain a state of full
physical and mental health for their normal development through the
provision of
health and social measures relating to their maintenance, clothing, housing and
medical care, at a level affordable
by public and community resources.
This right is manifested in the rights to health, clothing. Housing,
health education and physical education.
|
|||||
O3 Breastfeeding and food supplements for all children
|
T3.1 To reduce by 20 per cent the proportion of live births with low
birth-weight
|
I3.1 Proportion of live births with low birth-weight
|
Some six per cent of babies born in the past five years had low
birth-weight (under 2.5 kilos). There are differences in the failure
to report
birth-weight (because the baby was not weighed): the failure rate is about 28
per cent nation-wide but higher in rural
areas (48%) than in urban areas (10%)
(ENDES-2000)
|
S3.1.1 RENIEC
S3.1.2 INEI survey |
Direct R3: MINSA, MINEDU, education associations, MCLCP, MIMDES Support R3: UNFPA, UNICEF, international cooperation, mass media, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families Supplementary Food Programme; PRONAA school meals programme, comprehensive health insurance scheme |
T3.2 To reduce chronic malnutrition among children aged under three years
by 20 per cent throughout the country
|
I3.2 Proportion of under-threes with chronic malnutrition
|
One quarter of three-year-olds suffer from chronic malnutrition. The three
national surveys carried out during the decade show a
considerable gap between
the rates in urban areas (13 per cent in 200) and rural areas (same level of 40
per cent in 1996 and 2000)
(ENDES-2000)
|
S3.2.1 INEI surveys
|
||
T3.3 To ensure that 80 per cent of children aged under 12 months are
exclusively breast-fed up to the sixth month
|
I3.3 Proportion of children aged under 12 months exclusively breast-fed up
to the sixth month
|
In 2000 the rate of exclusive breastfeeding up to the sixth month was about
58 per cent (19 points higher than in 1996), with an increase
in the average
duration of exclusive breastfeeding from 2.7 months in 1996 to 4.2 months in
2000 (ENDES-2000)
|
S3.3.1 INEI surveys
|
||
T3.4 To improve nutritional practices for 80 per cent of
under-threes
|
I3.4 Proportion of under-threes whose mothers have taken up good
child-nutrition practices
|
Consumer surveys show that 58 per cent of under-twos have an insufficient
energy intake (ENDES-2000)
|
S3.4.1 INEI surveys
|
||
O5 Guaranteed conditions for children to exercise the right to life
|
T5.3 To ensure that 100 per cent of children aged under 12 months receive
BCG, DPT and polio vaccinations and that 100 per cent
of one-year-olds are
vaccinated against measles to consolidate the eradication of polio, measles and
tetanus
|
I5.3.1 Proportion of children aged under 12 months receiving BCG, DPT and
polio vaccinations
I5.3.2 Proportion of one-year-olds vaccinated against measles I5.3.3 Confirmed cases of polio, measles and neonatal tetanus |
The coverage of polio (96% in 2000) and DPT3 (94% in 2000) vaccination are
satisfactory with respect to children aged under 12 months.
However, rural
areas in the interior of the country experience problems, especially difficulty
of access, with the result that 33
per cent of remote districts had a coverage
rate of under 80 per cent in 2000 (ENDES-2000)
|
S5.3.1 MINSA S5.3.2 MINSA
S5.3.3 MINSA |
Direct R5: MINSA, SEDAPAL, local authorities, PCM, CTARS,
MCLCP
Support R5: PAHO, WHO, UNICEF, international cooperation, communication media, prefectures, NGOs, churches |
O6 Improvement of children’s intake of micronutrients
|
T6.1 To reduce chronic malnutrition by 20 per cent and acute malnutrition
by 30 per cent in extremely poor areas
|
I6.1.1 Chronic malnutrition rate
I16.1.2 Acute malnutrition rate |
Twenty-five per cent of under-fives suffer from chronic malnutrition. Low
weight for height or acute malnutrition is found only among
one per cent of the
children, and this rate is similar to the rate in previous years. The problem
is more serious among children
aged 12 to 15 months (2%) and children of mothers
living in the departments of Apúrimac, Loreto, Madre de Dios and
Ayacucho,
where over two per cent suffer from acute malnutrition
(ENDES-2000)
|
S6.1.1 INEI surveys S6.1.2 MINSA
|
Direct R6: MINSA, ESSALUD, local authorities, grass-roots social
organizations, MIMDES, MCLCP
Support R6: NGOs, SIN, PAHO, UNICEF, international cooperation, universities, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, communication media, families |
T6.2 To elimination on a sustainable basis diseases caused by vitamin-A
deficiency
|
I6.2.1 Incidence of diseases caused by vitamin-A deficiency
|
Sixty-seven per cent of children have an insufficient intake of vitamin A
and 42 per cent do not take in rnough iron (ENDES-2000)
|
S6.2.1 MINSA
|
||
T6.3 To reduce the incidence of anaemia among pregnant women by 20 per
cent
|
I6.3.1 Incidence of anaemia among pregnant women
|
Nation-wide, 36 per cent of females of childbearing age suffer from some
degree of anaemia; in rural areas the rate is 41 per cent
(ENDES-1996,
ENDES-2000)
|
S6.3.1 MINSA
|
||
T6.4 To reduce the incidence of anaemia among under-threes by 40 per
cent
|
I6.4.1 Incidence of anaemia among under-threes
|
In 2000, 70 per cent of under-twos exhibited some degree of anaemia, the
rate being higher among children living in mountain areas
(56%) and in other
rural areas (53%). In Cuzco, 71 per cent of under-fives suffer from anaemia;
the rate is over 62 per cent in
the departments of Tacna and Puno
(ENDES-2000)
|
S6.4.1 INEI surveys
|
||
T6.5 To keep iodine deficiency under control in the mountain and forest
regions
|
I6.5.1 Proportion of children with iodine deficiency in the mountain and
forest regions
|
With respect of ailments due to iodine deficiency, Peru has attained the
target of universal iodization of salt for human consumption
|
S6.5.1 INEI surveys
|
||
O11 Reduced teenage pregnancy rate
|
T11.1 To reduce the teenage fertility rate by 30 per cent
|
I11.1 Fertility rate among girls aged 15 to 19
|
In 2000, 11 per cent of girls aged 15 to 19 were already mothers
(ENDES-2000)
|
S11.1.1 INEI surveys
|
Direct R11: MINEDU, MINSA. Education associations, MIMDES, PNP,
MCLCP
Support R11: UNFPA, children’s ombudsmen, communication media, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, youth organizations |
T11.2 To reduce the maternal mortality rate among teenagers in poor areas
and in the mountain and Amazon regions by 55 per cent
|
I11.2 Maternal mortality rate among teenagers
|
|
S11.2.1 ENDES-INEI surveys
|
||
6. The right to participate and the freedom of association
The right to participate is the right of all children to be
involved in the taking of decisions in the places where their lives are
developing (community, school, district, etc.) through membership of
organizations which their peers may form or participation in
the activities
carried on in these places, where they may freely express their opinions.
The freedom of association is the right of all children to form
organizations to pursue useful purposes through joint activities.
The purposes
and activities may take any form, subject to the requirements of public order
and morals.
|
|||||
O16 Conditions to encourage and guarantee participation by children
|
T16.1 To ensure by 2005 that 30 per cent of adolescents are promoting and
exercising their rights by participating in associations
and taking decisions
relating to their comprehensive development and environment and to public
policies
|
I16.1 Proportion of adolescents participating in organizations for the
protection of their rights
|
|
S16.1.1 Children’s ombudsmen
S16.1.2 MIMDES |
Direct R16: MINEDU, education associations, children’s
ombudmen, local authorities, MIMDES, Ministry of Transport, Communications and
Housing, PNP
Support R16: National and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, youth organizations, vocational schools |
7. The freedom of expression and the right to receive
information
The freedom of expression is the right of all children to express
their opinions on the various aspects of their situation; it is
closely
connected with the right to participate, for it provides an outlet for
children’s various opinions, attitudes and perceptions
concerning matters
affecting their interests and influencing decision-taking.
The right to receive information is the right of children to have
access to knowledge about the various aspects of their situation,
be they
connected with science, technology or journalism, which are of public importance
and necessary to children’s participation
and full and authentic
involvement in society.
|
|||||
O16 Conditions to encourage and guarantee participation by children
|
T16.2 To ensure by 2010 that 70 per cent of adolescents in the schools are
taking part in associations and in the development of
a curriculum based on the
personal/social approach and the promotion of democratic and cross-cultural
values
|
I16.2 Proportion of adolescents in the schools involved in associations
and self-education activities
|
|
S16.2 MINEDU
|
Direct R16: MINEDU, education associations, children’s
ombudsmen, local governments, MIMDES, Ministry of Transport, Communications and
Housing, PNP
Support R16: National and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, youth organizations, vocational schools |
T16.3 To ensure by 2010 that in 80 per cent of schools adolescents are
participating in associations connected with the management
and functioning of
their schools
|
I16.3 Proportion of adolescents participating in meetings to discuss
aspects of the management and functioning of their schools
|
|
S16.3 MINEDU
|
||
O19 Reliable systems providing timely information on children
|
T19.1 Establishment of a system providing up-to-date and timely
information on the situation of children at the national, regional
and local
levels
|
I19.1 Availability of a system providing up-to-date and timely information
on the situation of children at the national, regional
and local levels
|
|
S19.1.1 INEI
S19.1.2 Municipalities S19.1.3 CTARs S19.1.4 MIMDES |
Direct R19: MIMDES, INEI, MINEDU, MINSA, MEF, RENIEC
Support R19: UNICEF, ILO, UNFPA, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, youth organizations, vocational schools |
T19.2 To establish a PNAI monitoring and supervision system
|
I19.2 Existence of a PNAI monitoring and supervision system
|
|
S19.2.1 INEI
S19.2.2 MIMDES |
||
8. The freedom of thought, conscience, religion and the right to use
one’s own culture and language
The freedom of conscience consists of the capacity to think
one’s own thoughts; it includes the ethical training of the human
being;
it posits the confrontation of one’s self in a quest for authenticity. It
also includes the right of every person to
form internal beliefs in accordance
with his or her own true knowledge and understanding, without any
interference.
The freedom of religion is closely connected with the freedom of conscience, for it implies, through manifestation and worship, expressing oneself in terms of one’s religious beliefs, i.e. in terms of the spiritual dimension The use of one’s own culture and language is also part of the
freedoms of conscience and expression
|
|||||
O8 Cross-cultural and good-quality basic education for all children
|
T8.3 To ensure by 2010 that at least 60 per cent of children of school age
living in areas where the mother tongue is not Spanish
are participating in
bilingual cross-cultural education programmes
|
I8.3 Proportion of children living in areas where the mother tongue is not
Spanish participating in bilingual cross-cultural education
programmes
|
|
S8.3.1 MINEDU
|
Direct R8: MINEDU, education associations, MCLPC
Support R8: UNICEF, UNESCO, international cooperation, mass media, universities, grass-roots indigenous organizations, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families |
O10 Good-quality secondary education
|
T10.3 To establish bilingual cross-cultural education programmes in 60 per
cent of areas where the mother tongue is not Spanish
|
I10.3 Proportion of areas where the mother tongue is not Spanish which
have bilingual cross-cultural education programmes
|
|
S10.3.1 MINEDU
|
Direct R10: MINEDU, education associations, MCLPC
Support R10: UNESCO, international cooperation, mass media, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, youth organizations |
T10.4 To ensure by 2010 that 60 per cent of adolescents in areas where the
mother tongue is not Spanish are participating in bilingual
cross-cultural
education programmes
|
I10.4 Proportion of adolescents in areas where the mother tongue is not
Spanish participating in bilingual cross-cultural education
programmes for
adolescents
|
|
S10.4.1 MINEDU
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
9. The right to play and recreation
This right is related to the right to develop freely and the right to
well-being; in other words it is a right focused on children,
for it is designed
to secure the full development of their physical, spiritual and intellectual
capacities in order to complete their
full realization as human beings
|
|||||
The function of the Parque de Leyendas Board (PATPAL) is to provide
for the community’s cultural well-being, leisure and recreation and to
foster the indigenous resources
of Peru’s 16 natural regions
|
The Parque de Leyendas, whose 969,557.38 square metres have been
declared inviolable by law, is owned by PATPAL, a decentralized agency of MIMDES
having
legal personality under public law
|
|
|
||
10. The right of disabled children to receive special
attention
|
|||||
O4 Identification of and provision for the special needs of disabled
children
|
T4.1 To produce a comprehensive analysis of the situation of disabled
children nation-wide and of the available public services
|
I4.1 Nation-wide study of the numbers and characteristics of disabled
children
|
Peru has almost 700,0000 children with some degree of disability (estimate
based on the document Perú: Perfil socio-demográfico de la
población discapacitada. INEI, Februuary 1996)
|
S4.1.1 MINSA
|
Direct R4: MINSA, MIMDES. MCLCP Support R4: Universities, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families |
T4.2 To extend the coverage of special education to 30 per cent, with a
presence at all the levels and in all the modalities of the
national education
system
|
I4.2 Proportion of children requiring special education who have received
or are receiving it
|
In 2000 there were 30,834 students enrolled in special education, not all
of them under 18 (Peru in Numbers statistical yearbook 2001. Lima,
September 2001)
|
S4.2.1 INEI special surveys
|
||
T4.3 Sixty per cent of special education schools to be staffed by
specialized personnel, with provision of suitable materials and
accessible
infrastructure
|
I4.3 Proportion of special education schools with specialized personnel,
suitable materials and accessible infrastructure
|
In 2000 there were 3,639 special education teachers working in the school
modality and 169 in the non-school modality (Peru in Numbers statistical
yearbook 2001. Lima, September 2001)
|
S4.3.1 MINEDU
|
||
T4.4 To ensure that 50 per cent of health centres nation-wide have been
equipped with rehabilitation facilities and services and
have established
coordination with the education services in their districts
|
I4.4 Proportion of health centres which have been equipped with
rehabilitation facilities and services and have established coordination
with
the education services in their districts
|
|
S4.4.1 MINSA
|
||
T4.5 Formulation and introduction of a regulatory framework for the
incorporation of inclusion policies in the national health and
education
programmes, in order to ensure the participation of disabled children in
community life throughout Peru
|
I4.5 Existence of a regulatory framework and establishment of programmes
to ensure the development of inclusive schools throughout
the country
|
|
S4.5.1 MINEDU S4.5.2 MINSA
|
||
O18 Infrastructure and services adapted to the needs and culture of all
children, with priority for children with special needs
|
T18.1 To ensure that 75 per cent of children with disabilities and special
needs enjoy the benefit of social services and programmes
adapted to their
needs
|
I18.1 Proportion of children with disabilities and special needs enjoying
social services and programmes adapted to their needs
|
(1) In 2000 there were 28,369 pupils enrolled in special education
(Peru in Numbers statistical yearbook 2001. Lima, September 2001)
(2) Peru has almost 700,000 children with some degree of disability (estimate based on the document Perú: Perfil socio-demografico de la población discapacitada. INEI, February 1996) |
S18.1.1 MINEDU S18.1.2 MINSA S18.1.3 MIMDES
|
Direct R18: MINEDU, local authorities, education associations,
MINSA, MIMDES
Support R18: Children’s ombudsmen, NGOs |
T18.2 To ensure that the whole public access infrastructure is specially
adapted for disabled children
|
I18.2 Proportion of the public access infrastructure specially adapted for
disabled children
|
|
S18.2.1 MINEDU S18.2.2 MINSA
|
||
T18.3 To increase enrolment in special education by 28 per cent by 2005,
with a presence at all the levels and in all the modalities
of the education
system nation-wide, with special emphasis on the rural population
|
I18.3 Proportion of children requiring special education who are enrolled
in special education schools
|
|
S18.2.3 Local authorities
|
||
T18.4 To formulate by 2005 a regulatory framework for the introduction of
inclusive schools throughout the country
|
I18.4 Existence of a regulatory framework for the introduction of
inclusive schools
|
|
S18.3.1 MINEDU
|
||
##11. The right to comprehensive protection from sexual abuse and
exploitation
|
|||||
O21 Reduction of the sexual exploitation of children
|
T21.1 To eradicate the sexual exploitation of children by 2010
|
I21.1 Cases of sexual exploitation of children
|
According to information from the Network of Organizations to End Child
Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking in Children
for Sexual Purposes
(ECPAT International), in 1996 an estimated total of 500,000 children suffered
sexual exploitation (taken from
the ECPAT web page)
|
S21.1.1 Attorney-General
|
Direct R21: MITINCI, Attorney-General, prefectures, Judiciary,
local authorities, communication media, MIMDES, PNP
Support R21: UNFPA, UNICEF, PAHO/WHO, national and international NGOs, ILO, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, youth organizations, vocational schools |
T21.2 To introduce by 2005 legislation on the sexual and commercial
exploitation of children matched by preventive measures and programmes
for the
care and reintegration of victims and for suppression of such exploitation and
punishment of persons implicated in child
prostitution and pornography
|
I21.2 Existence of legislation on the sexual and commercial exploitation
of children
|
The Congress of the Republic has approved the Optional Protocols to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of
children in armed
conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography,
adopted by the General Assembly
of the United Nations on 25 May 2000 and signed
by Peru on 1 November 2000
|
S21.2.1 MIMDES
|
||
O22 Lower levels of abuse and elimination of sexual abuse of
children
|
T22.2 To eliminate the sexual abuse of children
|
I22.2 Number of cases of children suffering sexual abuse
|
It is estimated that in 80 per cent of cases of sexual abuse the victim is
a member of the perpetrator’s family circle and that
60 per cent of
pregnancies in girls aged 11 to 14 are the result of incest or rape (La
Exclusión Social en el Perú. UNICEF. Lima, June 2001)
|
S22.2.1 National Police
|
Direct R22: MIMDES, MINSA, MINEDU, children’s ombudsmen,
Attorney-General, Judiciary, National Police
Support R22: Churches, children’s organizations, NGOs |
12. The right to comprehensive protection against the illicit transfer
of children and their illicit retention by their father or
mother
This right is derived from the fundamental right of every child to
live with his or her parents or retain direct contact with them
if they are
separated. The State is responsible for regulating these matters, and it is the
purpose of The Hague Convention on the
Civil Aspects of International Child
Abduction to ensure that rights of custody and rights of access are effectively
implemented
in the signatory States and that neither parent or any other
relative uses communication routes and the possibility of crossing frontiers
to
retain or remove a child or infringes the rights established by law, by treaty
or by the courts to the detriment of a father,
mother or relative.
According to the Convention, rights of custody include the care of
the person of the child and, in particular, the right to determine
the
child’s place of residence (known in Peruvian legislation as
“tenencia”, while rights of access include the right to take
a child for a limited period of time to a place other than the child’s
habitual residence (known in Peruvian legislation as the
“régimen de visitas”). The Convention applies to
children aged under 16 years.
|
|||||
Ministerial Decision No.206-2002-PROMUDEH designated the Division for the
Welfare of Children and Adolescents to discharge the duties
of Central Authority
as representative of the Ministry for Women and Social Development.
|
The following are the main functions of the Central Authority: (1) to
verify that a child and his or her abductor have entered or
left the country;
(2) to determine the exact whereabouts of a child and his or her abductor; and
(3) to transmit requests to Peru’s
judicial authority or to the Central
Authority of another State.
Since the end of January 2002 the Division has taken up eight cases of abduction; a bill on the incorporation of the Convention into national legislation is under consideration.. |
|
|
||
13. The right to comprehensive protection from economic exploitation,
including child labour
|
|||||
O9 Elimination of the worst forms of child labour and establishment of
educational alternatives to child labour
|
T9.1 To eliminate the worst forms of child labour and reduce the number of
child beggars
|
I9.1.1 Incidence of the worst forms of child labour
I9.1.2 Number of child beggars |
There are 50,000 children performing highly hazardous work (6-11 years
31,090; 12-17 years 18,910) (Children working in small-scale
mining in Peru.
ILO, first edition, 2001)
|
S9.1.1.1 MIMDES S9.1.2.1 MIMDES
|
Direct R9: Judiciary, Attorney-General, local authorities, MIMDES, PNP, MTPE, Ministry of Agriculture. MINEDU, MCLPC Support R9: ILO, CONFIEP, UNICEF, international cooperation, youth organizations, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families |
T9.2 To reduce child labour by 50 per cent
|
I9.2.1 Proportion of children aged six to 13 who work
|
It is estimated that some two million children nation-wide are engaged in
some form of work activity. The statistics (ENNIV, 1997)
indicate that 28 per
cent of working children aged six to 17 live on the edge of the poverty line and
that 71 per cent are from poor
families (estimate based on the Survey of Living
Standards 1997. INEI, Lima, 1997)
|
S9.2.1.1 INEI surveys
|
||
T9.3 To ensure that 75 per cent of the agencies of the justice system
intervene promptly in cases of economic exploitation and report
and punish,
within their spheres of competence, persons who violate children’s
rights
|
I9.3.1 Proportion of agencies of the justice system intervening promptly
in cases of economic exploitation and reporting and punishing
persons who
violate children’s rights
|
|
S9.3.1.1 Attorney-General
|
||
O13 Monitoring mechanisms to ensure suitable working conditions for
adolescents over the minimum age who have jobs
|
T13.1 To ensure that 100 per cent of adolescent workers are registered and
enrolled in special programmes for their comprehensive
development
|
I13.1 Proportion of workers aged 14 to 19 who are enrolled in special
programmes for their comprehensive development
|
|
S13.1.1 MTPEF S13.1.2 INEI surveys
|
Direct R13: Judiciary, Attorney-General, local authorities, MIMDES, PNP, MTPE, Ministry of Agriculture, MINEDU, MCLCP, CGTP Support R13: ILO, CONFIEP, MINSA, youth organizations, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, |
T13.2 To ensure that 70 per cent of schools have institutional education
projects to publicize the rights of adolescent workers and
are encouraging the
implementation of production projects suited to this age group
|
I13.2 Proportion of schools which have institutional education projects to
publicize the rights of adolescent workers and are encouraging
the
implementation of production projects suited to this age group
|
|
S13.2.1 MINEDU
|
||
T13.3 To establish mechanisms to encourage working adolescents to remain
in the education system and to reduce their drop-out rate
|
I13.3 Proportion of adolescents with at least one year of education who
are not studying or working
|
|
S13.3.1 INEI surveys
|
||
T13.4 To adapt the school curriculum to the situation of working
adolescents
|
I13.4 Adolescent drop-out rates
|
According to the 2000 Census of Schools, the current rates are: primary -
5.5 per cent; secondary - 6.6 per cent
|
S13.4.1 MINEDU report No. 026-ME/SPE-UEE-2002
|
||
T13.5 To ensure that schools improve the education standards of working
adolescents
|
I13.5 Rate of adolescent graduation from the education system
|
|
S13.5.1 MINEDU
|
||
T13.6 To reduce by at least 50 per cent the number of adolescents over the
minimum age who are working
|
I13.6 Number of workers under age 14
|
|
S13.6.1 INEI
|
||
T13.7 Elimination of the worst forms of adolescent lablour
|
I13.7 Number of adolescents employed in the worst forms of adolescent
labour
|
|
S13.7.1 MIMDES
|
||
14. The right to comprehensive protection from drug use and exploitation
connected with drugs
|
|||||
O15 Reduced use of legal and illegal drugs by adolescents
|
T15.1 Reduction by 50 per cent of the use of legal drugs by children and
adolescents
|
I15.1.1 Current rate of use of legal drugs by children and
adolescents
|
Alcohol has been used by 48 per cent of adolescents aged 12 to 13, 60 per
cent aged 14 to 16, and 77 per cent aged 17 to 19. Tobacco
has been used by 11
per cent of adolescents aged 12 to 13, 31 per cent aged 14 to 16, and 47 per
cent aged 17 to 19. Tranquillizers
have been used by one per cent of
adolescents aged 12 to 13, one per cent aged 14 to 16, and one per cent aged 17
to 19 (National
Survey of Drug Use and Prevention. CONTRADROGAS. Second
edition, November 2000.
|
S15.1.1 DEVIDA survey
|
Direct R15: DEVIDA, PNP, MINEDU, education associations, MINSA, MCLPC, Attorney-General, Judiciary Support R15: Network of Teenage Leaders, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, vocational schools |
T15.2 To reduce by 50 per cent the use of illegal drugs by
adolescents
|
I15.2.1 Current rate of illegal drug use by adolescents
|
According to the statistics, as of 2001 there were 987 juveniles (66 per
cent of juveniles in detention) housed in prisons and only
508 (34 per cent)
under open regimes (National Survey of Drug Use and Prevention. CONTRADROGAS.
Second edition, November 2001)
|
S15.2.1 DEVIDA survey
|
||
T15.3 To ensure that 70 per cent of adolescents in school participate in
activities to improve bodily care and health and enhance
self-esteem
|
I15.3.1 Proportion of adolescents in school who participate in activities
to improve bodily care and health and enhance self-esteem
I15.3.2 Existence of a regulation |
|
S15.3.1.1 MINEDU S15.3.2.1 MINEDU
|
||
T15.4 To incorporate an approved and operational course of comprehensive
preventive education in the current curriculum in initial,
primary and secondary
education
|
I15.4.1 Existence of an approved and operational course of comprehensive
preventive education in the current curriculum in initial,
primary and secondary
education
|
|
S15.4.1.1 MINEDU
|
||
T15.5 An approved programme of diagnosis, counselling and advice for older
children and adolescents
|
I15.5.1 Existence of an approved programme of diagnosis, counselling and
advice for older children and adolescents
|
|
S15.5.1.1 MINEDU
|
||
15. The right to comprehensive protection from maltreatment, abuse and
all forms of exploitation
|
|||||
O22 Lower level of maltreatment and elimination of sexual abuse of
children
|
T22.1 To reduce cases of maltreatment of children by 50 per cent
|
I22.1 Number of cases of children subjected to maltreatment
|
(1) A 1998 study of 19 hospitals reported 4,717 cases of maltreatment of
adolescents, 55 per cent of them girls. The highest rate
was found in the 15-19
age group, followed by girls in the 7-11 age group (Alva, Javier and Lita
Vargas, “Piensa en ellas y ellos: Iniciativas para desarollar servicios
de calidad en la atención de salud de las/los jóvenes”
(Think of them: Initiatives for the development of quality services for the care
of young people). CMP Flora Tristán,
UNFPA, Lima 2001)
(2) Thirty-three per cent of girls and women aged 15 to 49 believe that when raising children it is sometimes necessary to use physical punishment. And recent national surveys indicate that 49 per cent of children are hit by their parents and that this practice is regarded by children themselves as a natural means of discipline and education (La Exclusión Social en el Perú. UNICEF, Lima, June 2001) (3) Through its emergency centres for women PROMUDEH dealt with 2,111 cases involving children under 18 in January and February this year, representing nine per cent of all cases (PROMUDEH) |
S22.1.1 National Police
|
Direct R22: MIMDES, MINSA, MINEDU, children’s ombudsmen,
Attorney-General, Judiciary, National Police
Support R22: Curches, children’s organizations, NGOs |
16. The right of the child to comprehensive protection in situations of
deprivation of liberty
|
|||||
O14 Prevention and reduction of teenage violence
|
T14.1 To ensure that 60 per cent of teenagers in risk areas join
programmes for the proper use of leisure time and acquisition of
social and life
skills
|
I14.1 Proportion of persons aged 12 to 17 in risk areas participating in
programmes for the proper use of leisure time and acquisition
of social and life
skills
|
Four hundred gangs with some 12,950 members, including adolescents and
adults, have been identified in Lima and Callao. Eighty-eight
per cent (11,396)
are under 24 years old (National Police, Civic Participation Division
(DIRPACI))
|
S14.1.1 MIMDES
|
Direct R14: PNP, Judiciary, MIMDES, MINEDU, MINSA, MINJUS, MCLPC Support R14: Religious organizations, Networks of Teenage Leaders, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families |
T14.2 To reduce the number of juvenile offenders by 50 per cent
|
I14.2 Number of persons aged 12 to 17 recorded as offenders
|
In 2000, of the 3,387 juvenile offenders held in juvenile centres only
1,722 had been convicted, while 1,665 were awaiting trial (El Sistema Penal
Juvenil en el Perú (The Juvenile Justice System in Peru). Office of
the National Ombudsman, October 2000). According to the statistics, as of
December
2001, there were 987 juveniles (66 per cent of juveniles in detention)
housed in prisons and only 508 (34 per cent) under an open
regime (Peru:
1990-2000. Report on the attainment of the targets of the World Summit for
Children. Division for the Welfare of
Children and Adolecents. Working paper.
Lima, 2001)
|
S14.2.1 MINEDU
|
||
T14.3 To ensure that primary-level establishments are able to provide care
services for children and members of their families in
cases of domestic
violence and maltreatment of children
|
I14.3 Proportion of primary-level MINSA establishments providing care
services for children and members of their families in cases
of domestic
violence and maltreatment of children
|
|
S14.3.1 MINSA
|
||
T14.4 To ensure that 70 per cent of adolescents in schools take part in
educational activities based on the social/personal approach
and the promotion
of democratic values
|
I14.4 Proportion of adolescents taking part in educational activities
based on the personal/social approach
|
|
S14.4.1 MINEDU
|
||
17. The right of refugee and displaced children to comprehensive
protection
|
|||||
Programme of Support for the Resettlement and Development of Emergency
Zones (PAR)
To regulate promotion, compensation and prevention activities relating to the social, political, cultural and economic rights of people affected by the political violence To coordinate and carry out promotion, compensation and prevention activities relating to the social, political, cultural and economic rights of people affected by the political violence To implement key temporary and permanent measures which make a decisive contribution to fostering sustainable peace in Peru and increase the methodological armoury of the projects designed to overcome the economic, social, ethnic and cultural inequalities |
It is estimated that some 1,6 million people have been affected by the
political violence, 30 per cent of them children. According
to the PAR, about
600,000 of the total moved away from their home communities as a result of the
armed conflict, including children
orphaned by the fighting.
|
|
|
||
18. The right of children deprived of their parents to comprehensive
protection
|
|||||
Instituto Nacional de Bienestar Familiar
|
The services are provided in INABIF’s 35 operational units (25
children’s homes, 10 children’s centres)
The exact number of children living in institutions is not known; it is estimated that there are 3,982 such children nation-wide, living in the establishments of INABIF and the Children’ Foundation of Peru |
|
|
||
19. The right of the child to live in a healthy environment
|
|||||
O5 Conditions guaranteeing exercise of the right to life by children
|
T5.2 To increase by 70 per cent the number of children living in
households with a drinking-water supply and basic sanitation services
|
I5.2 Proportion of children living in households with a drinking-water
supply and basic sanitation services inside the house or building
|
In 2000, 20 per cent of households nation-wide did not have sanitation
services. In that same year, 34 per cent of rural households
were connected to
a public water supply inside the house or building; the figure for urban
households was 74 per cent (ENDES-2000)
|
S5.2.1 INEI surveys
|
Direct R5: SEDAPAL, local authorities, PCM, CTARs, MCLPC
O20 Care of children in situations of emergency |
O20 Care of children in situations of emergency
|
T20.1 To establish a special disaster prevention and response system based
on the best interests of the child
|
I20.1 Existence of a special disaster prevention and response system based
on the best interests of the child
|
|
S20.1.1 Civil defence units
|
Direct R20: Ministry of Defence (civil defence units), local
authorities, volunteer fire services, MINEDU, PNP, MINSA, MIMDES
Support R20: UNFPA, UNICEF, PAHO/WHO, national and international NGOs, churches, private sector, civic and community organizations, families, youth organizations, vocational schools |
T20.2 Establishment of a programme on organized response to emergencies at
the local, regional and national levels to promote the
right of the child to
special protection
|
I20.2 Existence of regulations on response to emergencies at the local,
regional and national levels to promote the right of the
child to special
protection
|
The continual occurrence in Peru of exceptional natural phenomena and
disasters has had serious social consequences, claimed many
victims and caused
considerable damage in recent years, and children and young people are
especially vulnerable to such emergencies
(La Exclusión Social en el
Perú. UNICEF. Lima, June 2001)
|
S20.2.1 Civil defence units
|
||
T20.3 To ensure by 2006 that the whole education community has been
involved in information and prevention activities relating to
natural disasters
and situations of emergency which place children’s safety and health at
risk
|
I20.3 Proportion of members of the education community who have taken part
in information and prevention activities
|
|
S20.3.1 MINEDU
|
||
20. The right of the child to access to justice
|
|||||
O17 Consolidation of a special legal system and arrangements for the
administration of juvenile justice
|
T17.1 To secure by 2005 the systematic organization, harmonization and
diffusion of the existing domestic legislation on children,
in line with the
international conventions and agreements in force
|
I17.1 Existence and diffusion of systematically organized and harmonized
legislation on children in line with the international conventions
and
agreements in force
|
|
S17.1.1 MINJUS
|
Direct R17: Judiciary, Attorney-General, local authorities, MIMDES,
PNP, MTPE, MINEDU, Congress of the Republic, MINJUS, National Ombudsman,
MCLPC
Support R17: ILO, CONFIEP, UNICEF, NGOs, children’s ombudsmen, legal-aid lawyers |
T17.2 To consolidate by 2010 a special system of justice for all children
which takes account of their rights
|
I17.2 Existence of a special system of juvenile justice for all children
which takes account of their rights
|
|
S17.2.1 Judiciary
|
||
T17.3 To ensure by 2010 that 80 per cent of State schools have
institutional education projects for the diffusion of the rights of
the
child
|
I17.3 Proportion of State schools with functioning institutional education
projects for the diffusion of the rights of the child
|
|
S17.3.1 MINEDU
|
||
T17.4 To ensure by 2010 that 70 per cent of State schools have
organizations for the defence and promotion of the rights of the child
|
I17.4 Proportion of State schools having a children’s
ombudsman
|
There are currently 397 children’s ombudsmen for the national total
of 60,048 State schools; this means that one per cent of
the schools have this
service. On 28 December 2001 MINEDU issued directive No. 032-2001 on promotion
of the establishment of children’s
ombudsmen throughout the country
|
S17.4.1 MINEDU
|
V. CONCLUSIONS
222. The levels of poverty and extreme poverty in Peru have created a
situation in which children constitute the age group most seriously
affected by
the country’s economic situation. It has been indicated throughout this
report that, where social programmes are
concerned, the activities of the State
have been focused chiefly on the fight against poverty and extreme poverty.
However, the
poor planning of the proposed strategies has undermined the impact
and sustainability of the programmes described in the report.
This has been
aggravated by the defective coordination of the management activities of the
State, local authorities and social actors.
In order to tackle this problem the
Peruvian State is promoting the Forums against Poverty: this mechanism for
dialogue among representatives
of all the State agencies and organizations of
civil society are charged with formulating concrete proposals for sustainable
social
development at the local level, giving priority to projects facilitating
the active participation of poor and extremely poor population
groups in the
taking of decisions on the economic and social development of their localities.
It must therefore be stressed that
through the Forums against Poverty the State
and civil society are indeed creating broad opportunities for dialogue with a
view to
the country’s social and economic development.
223. One of
the main features of the 1990s was the authoritarian structure of State power,
which created situations in which no priority
was given to respect for human
rights, but at the end of 2000 the transitional Government introduced an
experiment in the exercise
of democratic power, initiating a period of national
dialogue whose principal fruit may be seen in the National Accord, an instrument
embodying the agreement between the various social and political forces and
making children one of its priority targets.
224. It must be stressed
that the public policies established for children have suffered frequent
disruption owing to the absence
of an integrated vision of the subject matter.
In that connection the National Plan of Action for Children and Adolescents
2002-2010
(PNAI) is an instrument which will help to consolidate public policies
in this area and subject them to proper coordination and systematic
organization
for the benefit of children. This socio-legal instrument has very important
qualitative advantages over previous
plans: (a) it is the outcome of a national
dialogue, during which the State and civil society played active roles in the
formulation
of the PNAI (and children themselves played an active role in the
debate); (b) the National Accord included among its objectives
the promotion of
the rights of the child; (c) the PNAI invests specific officials with
responsibility for the attainment of its targets
and objectives; and (d) the
Ministry for Women and Social Development (MIMDES) has created the PNAI Office
in its Department for
Children and Adolescents. This will facilitate the
awareness-raising and monitoring work and the formulation of the operational
plans of the PNAI.
225. With regard to the right to health, the report
points out that in the country’s rural areas (concerned chiefly with the
marketing of agriculture and livestock products) the chronic malnutrition rate
remains very high. Unfortunately, most of Peru’s
rural areas lack the
means of communication and technical resources to make the marketing of their
products an attractive proposition.
This is reflected in the high rate of
chronic malnutrition in these areas. The National Food Aid Programme (PRONAA)
endeavours
to focus its measures on helping poor and extremely poor areas by
purchasing local products in order to take account of cross-cultural
patterns of
consumption, to inject energy into the local economies, and essentially to
improve children’s nutrition. However,
this injection of energy remains
at a very low level, and the high incidence of malnutrition is still having an
impact on the comprehensive
development of Peru’s children. The Ministry
of Health has relaunched its national comprehensive vaccination campaigns, and
the level of vaccination coverage against major diseases such as polio
constitutes an important achievement.
226. As may be appreciated from the
education statistics presented in the report, the comprehensive expansion of the
coverage of the
education system constitutes another uncompleted task. The
National Wawa Wawi Programme seeks to expand the coverage for young children
with respect to early stimulation. The programmes of non-school initial
education (PRONOEI), which provide an integrated service
for children aged three
to five, enjoy strong grass-roots participation and constitute a very important
project for the development
of education for this age group.
227. Where
primary education is concerned, rural location is a relevant factor in both
qualitative and quantitative terms; but it
must be acknowledged that the
drop-out and over-age rates are still high. With regard to the quality of
education, it should be
stressed that the improvement of the selection of
teachers nation-wide, which has received vigorous attention from the Ministry of
Education, has helped to upgrade the academic standards of human resources in
primary and secondary education. And proposals are
being formulated which take
account of factors of social risk; for example, the Rural Children’s
Education (Promotion) Act
(promulgated in November 2001) stipulates the
principle of educational equity in this sector and sets out an education system
to
guarantee all children in rural schools equity of access and equity in the
quality of their education service.
228. The State has an institutional
system for the promotion and protection of the rights of the child. The
National System for the
Comprehensive Care of Children and Adolescents, whose
lead agency is MIMDES, is coordinating the components of the National System,
focusing its attention on the development of the abilities of the individual in
a quest for human and social development. As the
basic instrument of public
policies for children, the PNAI will help to coordinate the efforts of civil
society and the State. It
is important to emphasize in this connection the
vital importance of the children’s ombudsmen as a fundamental component of
the National System. In fact, local authorities and society as a whole have
established a network for the defence of children which
is without precedent at
the national level. In the 1990s this system of children’s ombudsmen was
created by the efforts of
the social actors and international cooperation
agencies (Save the Children and UNICEF were the system’s chief promotors)
and
it is now acquiring increasing importance and managerial independence; it is
also a key instrument of the decentralization of MIMDES
in terms of management
policy.
229. There are important matters requiring priority attention in
the implementation of the PNAI, matters clearly indicated in the
matrix.
Although the promotion of regulations for the protection of children has been
and remains a major concern (the promulgation
of the Children's and
Adolescents’ Code is a graphic example of this concern), the Convention on
the Rights of the Child and
the PNAI have still not been implemented
comprehensively and effectively. The Peruvian State is determined to apply both
these instruments.
For that is the only way to conceive of the authentic
development of Peruvian society.
- - - - -
[*] [Translator’s
note] The distinction drawn in Peruvian law and in the Spanish original of this
report between children (0-11
years) and adolescents (12-17 years) is maintained
in the translation, as in this example, only in titles of bodies, legislation,
etc. In routine references “children” means children within the
meaning of the Convention
(0-17 years).
[1] The age ranges are as
follows: 0-5 years (from conception to age five years, 11 months and 29 days);
6-11 years (from age six years to 11 years, 11 months and 29 days);
12-17 years (from age 12 years to 17 years, 11 months and 29 days);
and
0-17 years (from birth to age 17 years, 11 months and 29 days). The State
protects life from the moment of conception; chapter
I, article 2.1, of the
Constitution states: “Everyone has the right: (1) to life, an identity,
moral, mental and physical integrity, unrestricted development and
well-being.
From conception a person is a subject of law with respect to all aspects of the
protection provided by the law.”
[2] The National Forum against Poverty has the following goals:
• To negotiate social policies for human development based on gender equity. To secure increased efficiency in the execution of the anti-poverty programmes;
• To institutionalize the people’s participation in the design and adoption of decisions and the monitoring of the State’s social policy;
• To ensure the transparency and integrity of the anti-poverty programmes.
And the following functions:
• To promote a national dialogue to secure the coherent harmonization of the efforts of the State, civil society and the private sector in the fight against poverty;
• To establish mechanisms for coordination among the State sectors and between them and civil society in order to secure transparency and efficiency and establish reliable and up-to-date systems of information on public social investment, within the framework of the established social objectives;
• To serve as a mechanism for coordination in order to avoid the duplication of social welfare programmes, secure the rational and timely use of committed resources, and determine geographical or thematic priorities for the allocation of resources;
• To act as a consultative body for the formulation of national, departmental and local plans relating to development and social-welfare policies and for the determination of budgetary priorities.
[3] The Truth Commission is responsible for investigating the process, the facts and the liabilities in connection with the terrorist violence and infringements of human rights between May 1980 and November 2000, which may be attributed both to terrorist organizations and to agents of the State, and for proposing measures to consolidate peace and concord among Peruvians. It has the following objectives:
(a) To study the political, social and cultural conditions and the behaviour which, in society and in the institutions of the State, contributed to the tragic situation of violence in Peru;
(b) Where appropriate, to contribute to the investigation by the relevant judicial organs of the crimes and violations of human rights commmitted by the terrorist organizations and by some agents of the State, to endeavour to determine the whereabouts and situations of the victims, and to identify as far as possible the presumed perpetrators;
(c) To draft proposals for compensating and restoring the self-respect of the victims and members of their families;
(d) To recommend institutional, legal, educational and other reforms to prevent any recurrence of this phenomenon, with a view to the introduction and implementation of such reforms by means of legislative, political and administrative measures; and
(e) To establish mechanisms for monitoring the action taken on its recommendations.
[4] Population estimates and projections 1950-2050. National Institute for Statistics and Information (INEI).
[5] Technical Report No. 002, April 2002: “Main findings of the National Household Survey of Living Conditions and Poverty (ENAHO), Fourth Quarter 2001”. INEI.
[6] Idem.
[7] Idem.
[8] Idem.
[9] Living Standards Survey 2000. INEI.
[10] Demographic and Family Health Survey 2000. INEI and others. Lima, May 2001.
[11] Idem.
[12] Idem.
[13] Taken from the speech delivered by the President of the Council of Ministers, Dr. Luís Solari de la Fuente, to the Congress of the Republic on 9 August 2002.
[14] Idem.
[15] Idem.
[16] Idem.
[17] PNAI 2002-2010. Peru, June 2002.
[18] Technical report No. 002, April 2002: “Main findings of the National Household Survey of Living Conditions and Poverty (ENAHO) - Fourth Quarter 2001”. INEI.
[3]2 Demographic and Family Health Survey 2000. INEI and others. Lima, May 2001.
33 Idem.
[34] Idem.
[35] Idem.
[37] The non-school initial education programmes are designed to provide a comprehensive service for children aged three to five years and have strong grass-roots participation.
[38] PNAI 2002-2010. Lima, June 2002.
[39] El
Peruano, 24 October 2000, p.
16.
[40] Report
442-2001-MMC-DMSC-DRC of the Municipality of Lima.
[41] Webb, Richard and Graciela Fernández. Anuario Estadístico Perú en Números 2001 (Peru in Numbers statistical yearbook). CUANTO. Lima, 2001.
[42] INEI web page.
[43] Outline of
Education Policy 2001-2006. Ministry of Education. Suplemento
Educación para la Democracia. Lima, June
2001.
[44] La
Exclusión Social en el Perú (Social Exclusion in Peru).
UNICEF. Lima, June 2001.
[45] Outline of Education Policy 2001-2006. Ministry of Education. Suplemento Educación para la Democracia. Lima, January 2002.
[46] Agenda abierta para la educación de las niñas rurales (Open agenda for the education of rural girls). National Network for Girls’ Education, 1999.
[47] Executive
summary prepared by Teresa Tovar in collaboration with Ana María Robles,
based on the text of the bill on promotion
of the education of rural girls.
National Network for Girls’
Education.
[48] Demographic
and Family Health Survey 2000. INEA and others. Lima, June 2002.
[49] PNAI
2002-2010. Lima, June
2002.
[50] Published
in El Peruano on Friday, 23 November 2001.
[51] Idem.
[52] INEI web
page.
[53] Webb,
Richard and Graciela Fernández. Op. cit.
[54] PNAI 2002-2010. Lima, June 2002.
[55] Para Conocer e Informar (To know and to report). Handbook on HIV and AIDS for journalists. AIDS Netwok Peru. Second edition, 2001.
[56] Information
taken from the preliminary report on the consultation on “Systematic
organization of statistics on adolescent pregnancy,
adolescent gang culture, and
drug use by
adolescents”.
[57] National
Survey of Drug Prevention and Use. Commission to Combat Drug Use (CONTRADROGAS),
Prevention and Rehabilitation Unit. Second
edition, November 2000.
[58] Idem.
[59] PNAI
2002-2010. Lima, June
2002.
[60] Idem.
[61] The PAR was established under MIMDES to attend to the people affected by the violence.
[62] Information taken from Report No. 147-2002-PROMUDEH-PAR dated 19 March 2002.
[63] Idem.
[64] UNICEF. Op. cit.
[66] Idem.
[67] Calculated on the basis of the paper “Perú: Perfil Socio-Demográfico de la Polación Discapacitada” (Peru: Socio-Demographic Profile of the Disabled Population). INEI, February 1996.
[68] Webb, Richard and Graciela Fernández. Op. cit.
[69] PNAI 2002-2010. Lima, June 2002.
[70] Idem.
[73] ILO. International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour. El Trabajo Infantil en el Perú: Qué está pasando? (Child Labour in Peru: What’s happening?).
[74] Idem.
[75] PNAI
2002-2010. Lima, June
2002.
[76] ILO.
International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour. Op. cit.
[77] Adoptions Office - Division for the Welfare of Children and Adolescents - MIMDES.
[78] Demographic
and Family Health Survey 2002. INEI and others. Lima, May
2001.
[79] Adoptions
Office - Division for the Welfare of Children and Adolescents - MIMDES.
[80] SPB basic data sheets, 1999. INABIF.
[81] “Children at high risk - I: qualitative study”. Save the Children, Sweden (responsible for the Aldo Peñaflor/Imasen research carried out between 8 and 15 August 2000).
[82] Peru 1990-2000. Report on the attainment of the targets of the World Summit for Children. Division for the Welfare of Children and Adolescents. Working paper. Lima, 2001.
[83] PNAI 2002-2010. Lima, June 2002.
[86] The phased approach was used in designing this matrix.
[87] The matrix was presented in Lima in September 2002 by representatives of the Inter-American Children’s Institutte.
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