a network that confronts the negligence of the State (5/5)

Norma Rivera He has been looking for his daughter for six years and he says he has already assimilated that he will never find her. Shirley Villanueva Rivera, 24, disappeared on March 23, 2017, after going out with three friends in what seemed like a normal gathering. The contradiction of her versions led the Prosecutor’s Office to treat them as suspects, but the mediocrity of the police investigation is what —in Norma’s eyes— left them free for minor crimes.

“Them [los implicados] They were only given suspended prison terms of two years and eight months for allegedly ‘not helping’ my daughter when she drowned on a beach, which is the version they gave. Those sentences have already been carried out and now I suppose they are leading their normal life,” Shirley’s mother explained to France 24.

“The case continues, but it is our last attempt for the judge to decide if everything is archived or if they give me the reason to restart the investigations. Our lawyer tells us that, if they deny us the reason, what we have left is to insist on international instances. I have the right to know what happened to my daughter and, if we have to get to that, we will do it, “he says.

This March 8, Norma attends an event in the Lima district of Los Olivos to, once again, raise public attention to the injustice that her family has experienced since the day of the complaint. For her, there are two main supports in her life: her remaining son and Mujeres Desaparecidas Peru, an organization of mothers who —like her— demand that her cases not be forgotten by the Peruvian State.

Three years ago, in February 2020, Rosario Aybar and her husband, Carlos Rodríguez, received a call that took a load off their shoulders. Her daughter, Solsiret Rodríguez Aybar (23), who had disappeared since August 2016, was found in skeletal remains after the confession of her murderers. The identification of those responsible and the discovery of the body made national news all that week, but the focus was elsewhere: Solsiret’s disappearance report had not been dealt with correctly from the beginning and the investigation was lengthened due to a lack of immediate police proceedings.

“Unfortunately, I lost my daughter like this: first, disappeared, and then found in such a cruel and inhuman way. Imagine the other mothers, families, who have spent years without any clue,” says Rosario.

And he adds: “This ineffectiveness of the police, this disinterest, only gives time and protection to the aggressors. It is not fair. It cannot be that, in the middle of the century in which we are, when we need to report a disappearance, the police tell us that ‘she surely went with the boyfriend’ or that she will be ‘lost’, judging our daughters for being women”.

A spiral of institutional abuse that begins with the poor reception of cases

Since April 2022, a Supreme decret —issued by the Ministry for Women of Peru and endorsed by the Presidency of the Republic— established that the disappearance of women in the country must be recognized as a modality of gender violence. It was not the first regulatory change regarding disappearances in the country. In fact, in 2018, Peru repealed a law then in force to establish special mechanisms for these reports.

By 2020, the Ministry of the Interior published an inter-institutional protocol that, in theory, improves the attention to missing persons complaints in general. The new measures include professional treatment when the disappeared person is a woman or girl, potentially a victim of contexts of gender violence. But legal advances have not generated major changes.

“Sometimes, on the street, while I’m walking, I come across a big girl, who looks like 11 years old, and my heart stops. I start to think ‘Is Tatiana like this?’. But the reality is that I myself don’t know what her face will be like now. Seven years have passed. It’s been a long time living like this, looking for my granddaughter’s face among the people. The Police never managed images that show the progression of the age of Tatiana or Yamilé,” says Patricia Acosta.

Tatiana Díaz Acosta (5) and Yamilé Pajuelo Díaz (7 months) disappeared along with their mother Estefhany Díaz (22) on April 24, 2016. The three had left a children’s party in a neighborhood of Ventanilla, Callao province, when no more was known. Despite the time elapsed, neither the Police nor the prosecution reached clear conclusions about the factsand key details for the search continue to be neglected, such as illustrations showing the possible current appearance of the girls or the single photo of Estefhany on the national portal of disappearances. Additionally, Patricia recapitulates that the initial complaint was not received the same day and that at her police station her family received sexist comments about Estefhany’s life.

“follow [los policías] in the same macho words despite the protocols, despite the fact that our laws say that complaints are admitted immediately. Behind a disappearance, there may be great violence towards a woman, be it femicide or human trafficking. But, the way they treated me and my husband in 2016 or the ladies [Patricia y Norma]before all the changes in the laws, that is how they continue to treat it at the moment”, assures Rosario Aybarwho often accompanies mothers whose daughters have recently disappeared in protests.

“If it is a woman who has disappeared, for them it is most likely their fault and they do not move,” he laments.

The organization Missing Women Peru, to which Rosario, Patricia, Norma and hundreds of families looking for their daughters belong, was created by the feminist activist and sociologist Katherine Soto in 2016. It is an initiative that Katherine took after the disappearance of her friend Solsiret Rodríguez and the episodes of institutional negligence that stifled the investigations. The platform allows dissemination spaces for cases that do not become news. In addition, it generates a network of resilience between the pain of mothers.

“The last six years have seen substantial and quite important changes, including that we have Legislative Decree 1428 and the recent inclusion of cases of disappearance of women within a legal framework. [que los admite como formas de violencia de género]. If this has been enough? Well, definitely not. We are still talking about how front-line operators do not have the instruments to strengthen capacities to deal with this type of problem. This has a lot to do with the fight against the institutional culture and the beliefs of the people who operate within the articulation of the justice system to investigate and resolve complaints.s”, Soto refers to this medium.

A poor system

According to figures presented by the Ombudsman’s Office, only during the past year the National Police registered 11,524 complaints about disappeared women and girls. Of these, only 48% (5,558) were systematized as “resolved”, after the location of the people or the notification of their families.

Carolina Garcesdeputy official for Women’s Rights at the Ombudsman’s Office, said in an interview with France 24 that, although Peru has optimized norms and protocols that recognize the problem of the disappearance of women, a failed application of these by the competent authorities persists. This, due to ignorance, disarticulation and lack of training, but also due to gender stereotypes.

“If one does not have gender lenses, if one does not see the different implications that a disappearance generates, if they are men or if they are women, then we are starting off badly,” says Garcés.

“In the specific case of women disappeared by private individuals, there is a serious problem in the country, which is a gender problem and that is how it should be dealt with. From the Ombudsman’s Office, for three years now, we have published monthly statistical monitoring reports and we also include in these recommendations and demands for the authorities. Unfortunately, in many cases the complaint is filed and what is received is a sexist comment,” he says.

Garcés agrees that poor initial police attention to a disappearance generates an impact —sometimes irreversible— that hinders investigations and access to justice for families.

“If you don’t act properly, quickly and urgently, the disappeared women and girls are definitely at great risk, which is to end up being victims of femicide or sexual exploitation,” the official warned.

“The correct thing is to receive the complaint immediately, issue alert and emergency notes, taking the necessary data, request elements that facilitate the search, such as video surveillance material or the geolocation tool. This is done immediately to avoid irreparable outcomes. Now, in the country we have a registry of reports of disappearance that is not unified and that has many deficiencies,” he concludes.

In 2022, the country registered 137 femicides. Of this total, 22 cases (16%) corresponded to women who had been reported missing.​​​​​​ Despite the fact that the National Registry of Disappeared Persons was established by law in 2003, the country only had one in 2020. Cases of prolonged disappearances —such as that of Shirley Villanueva— are not included, unless the families request it.