Improving living conditions
Let's start with a general overview. Admittedly, the Covid-19 crisis will leave deep scars on the country's economic reality and has unfortunately reinforced exclusion, but up until now Peru was a country that was getting better and better, if the figures are to be believed. But it never managed to close the gaps completely. Fertility, for example, has been 2.2 children per woman for several years, a far cry from the large families of previous generations. Infant mortality is around 16 ‰. Life expectancy averages 73 years (it was 76 in 2019). Although still far from the levels of developed countries, these figures mark a positive trend of steadily improving living conditions. The cultural level of the population has risen significantly, from an illiteracy rate of 40% in 1961 to less than 5% according to recent figures.
Not everyone is equal, and it is access to services that still distinguishes some Peruvians from others. Drinking water was available in 89.1% of households in 2023, but electricity is only really constant in 50% of homes. However, mobile telephony has exploded, with coverage of over 90% of the country, and 77% of the population now has access to the Internet. The use of social networks and WhatsApp is an unprecedented digital revolution on a national scale.
High density along the coast and in the city
Today, almost half of Lima's 34 million inhabitants live in and around the city. The Costa, which accounts for 58% of the total population, has an average of 50 to 90 inhabitants per km² in its coastal cities. Apart from Lima, 26 cities have more than 100,000 inhabitants, accounting for 60% of the total population. The geography along the coast also helps to connect key cities along the Pan-American Highway: Chimbote, Trujillo, Chiclayo, Piura and Tumbes in the north, or Ica, Arequipa and Tacna in the south. In these cities, life is bustling, the horns never sleep and the pace of life is accelerated. They are growing fast, in a rather chaotic way, and give the impression of expanding faster than any urbanization plan. The Peruvian coast is indeed the economic and political center of Peru. Behind these more densely populated cities lies a more modern way of life: people often commute long distances to work, they are more connected to technology and mass consumption in general, and there are American-style "malls" outside the cities. An immense hustle and bustle, an often epic disorder between gleaming modern buildings and street vendors posted at the entrances, this is what defines this modern and immensely majority Peru.
Beware, however, that this smoke and mirrors approach has led to a number of disappointed city dwellers struggling to find their place. Lima, in particular, is surrounded on the hills that gradually rise towards the Andes by numerous precarious working-class neighbourhoods and so-called "asentamientos humanos". Behind this name are migrants, mostly from the sierra and more rarely from the selva, who have sometimes been settled for more than a generation and have built a few small houses on the land they found, which over the years have become fully-fledged neighborhoods that are gradually being connected to running water, sewers, electricity.. These basic necessities are not available everywhere, and the phenomenon of land invasion and informal construction continues as subsequent generations climb higher and higher up the stone hills. These hills are often lined with huge staircases that provide a pathway for those who live here. This phenomenon of precarious peripheries can be observed in almost all the major cities of the sierra: Cusco, Ayacucho, Arequipa. The countryside is becoming desertified, and migrants no longer go as far as Lima, but settle near the nearest big city, reproducing a very similar pattern.
A multi-cultural and multi-ethnic specificity
The uniqueness of the Peruvian population lies in its plurality. With origins in Europe, Asia and Africa, the many migrants from different periods of history have greatly contributed to the interbreeding of the Peruvian people. As early as the 16th century, the process of colonization led to the mixing of various racial components. In the 19th century, 80,000 Chinese arrived in Peru, mainly to work on sugar cane plantations. Today, almost half of all Peruvians are of mixed race, half Amerindian and half European. In some regions of Peru, particularly on the coast, there are many mestizos of African descent. Finally, the indigenous peoples are mainly found in the Andean regions, and large minorities, such as the Ashaninkas and Aguarunas, are still present in Amazonia. This cross-fertilization is mainly to be found in the cuisine, which is the most popular way of expressing this melting pot of origins.
Peru's official languages are Spanish and Quechua. Spanish is spoken by virtually the entire population. Over 3 million Peruvians, or 13.9% of the population, still speak Quechua, mainly in the Andes. 500,000 people in the Puno region speak Aymara, a language they share with Bolivians. But there are almost 50 regional languages, native languages that have survived mainly in the jungle. Around 5 million Peruvians have a language other than Spanish as their mother tongue. To date, Peru has 51 indigenous peoples from the Amazon and 4 from the Andes, speaking 48 native languages. The Peruvian Ministry of Culture's Indigenous Peoples Database (BDPI) is an interesting online platform that lists the country's indigenous peoples. Native languages, long sidelined, are gradually being promoted, as is dual education; in October 2019, a student from the humanist San Marcos University, founded in 1551, defended her thesis in Quechua. The public TV channel, TV Peru, also offers programs in the native language.
Indigenous peoples under threat
Behind this facade of costa, sierra and selva, often put forward even in advertising, we find a lot of marketing, but not enough political will to fill the gaps. These three realities, these three ways of life, are very distinct, and beyond the postcard images of natives proud of their native culture, we have to admit that they are hardly integrated into the landscape. The diagnosis gets worse when we talk about indigenous peoples. There are an estimated 7,500 of them, divided between 25 indigenous families, who have been living in isolation for centuries to protect themselves, and those who have established contacts scattered throughout the Amazonian forests in the regions of Cusco, Madre de Dios, Ucayali, Loreto and Huanuco. "Indigenous peoples face a thousand faces of violence: on the one hand, institutional abandonment and denial of their rights; on the other, violence ranging from threats, intimidation and police harassment, through arrests and imprisonment, to assaults, community evictions, sexual violence, kidnappings and murders of indigenous leaders," Mariana Ugarte, head of Manos Unidas projects in Peru, told Le Petit Journal in Lima. "Behind these deaths lie illegal logging, land trafficking, mining, agribusiness and drug trafficking, but the framework that hosts it all is the same: an extractivist economic model, centralist state policies and structural racism". In the Peruvian Amazon alone, during the pandemic, there were a dozen murders of indigenous leaders, according to data from the Institute for the Common Good. The hardest-hit community was undoubtedly the Kakataibo, with four murdered leaders, whose main cause was drug trafficking. In January 2020, the Kakataibo chief, Arbidio Meléndez, informed the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders of the threats his people were receiving. Arbidio was killed two months later near his community. With no legal protection and the state occupied elsewhere by the pandemic, illegal economies flourish and violence increases in these isolated jungle areas. A North and South Kakataibo Indigenous Reserve has just been created, located in the Loreto, Ucayali and Huánuco regions, with almost 150,000 hectares of forest, for the protection of the rights, habitat and conditions that ensure the existence and integrity of isolated and first-contact indigenous peoples (PIACI). To date, Peru has 7 indigenous and territorial reserves, located in the regions of Madre de Dios, Cusco, Huánuco, Loreto and Ucayali, totalling almost 4 million hectares of the Peruvian Amazon, or 3.1% of the national territory.
The specific case of Venezuelan migrants
Even if you're just passing through, you're likely to be aware of the massive migration of Venezuelans to Peru. They are fleeing Nicolás Maduro's regime in search of new job opportunities. Numbers are constantly changing, but by 2023 there were around 1.5 million Venezuelans on Peruvian soil, making them the second-largest host country after Colombia. Fewer than half have temporary residence permits, and therefore work permits. Many others are not legally registered. In the streets, many of them sell coffee, cakes and local dishes. Many also get on buses to ask for a handout. The majority work in the service sector: cab and VTC drivers, delivery services, catering, hotels, hairdressing salons... They have a reputation for their unfailing friendliness and smiles. You may be able to detect a slightly different accent. But Peruvians don't always take kindly to cheap labor competing with them, not to mention an increase in street violence and muggings. More vulnerable, their daily lives are often very precarious, and they suffer abuses of all kinds due to the fragility of their situation.
Since June 22, 2019, Peru has required a visa for Venezuelan citizens, which has considerably reduced the migratory flow, but the main border at Aguas Verdes, Tumbes, still receives many requests.
