A society with very traditional values
Peru remains a conservative society for the most part, still projecting reassuring reference figures onto the community. Here, the family is at the heart of everything, against all odds. The family bond is an essential value for many. Nor is it uncommon to see several generations living together under the same roof (a roof that grows larger as floors are built to accommodate children, their families and grandchildren). It's only recently that the real estate market in Lima, for example, has begun to offer small apartments, as the quest for independence that seems to characterize our European societies is absent from the Peruvian social model. This attachment to family seems to transcend social differences.
On the other hand, Peru remains a macho country. Domestic violence is a serious problem in Peru, and the figures are not diminishing: in 2024, 23,500 cases of sexual violence were recorded, and 123 cases of feminicide were confirmed (170 in 2023). The national Aurora program keeps precise but chilling statistics. Since 2011, the crime of "feminicide" has finally been recognized as punishable by 15 years' imprisonment. Today, more and more women are taking action against violence against women. The #niunamenos movement marches through the streets of Lima every August, sounding the alarm as soon as a case is reported. A police force that does not listen and a justice system that still too often rules too lightly are points that associations continually denounce. Ordinary violence also exists in isolated rural villages, where victims do not have access to sufficient support to even report the abuse they have suffered.
Progress on issues such as abortion and homosexuality is non-existent. When debates do take place, they are systematically adjourned, without the country making any progress on these important issues. There are a few islands of progress, but the vast majority wisely tuck themselves away under a smooth, harmonious facade.
Precarious social rights
Poverty. The average INEI figure for the average income of Peruvian households is low: 1,695 soles (around 410 euros), but the reality varies widely between men (2,295 soles) and women (1,645 soles). The average salary in Lima is slightly higher, but so is the cost of living. Add to this a very precarious set of rights, and it's far from easy to live from day to day in Peru. Approximately 58% of the population is associated with the banking system, figures which vary very slightly in terms of the working and/or urban population, but there remains an average of 70% of Peruvians who live from day to day at the heart of an informal economy which, what's more, has been crippled by the Covid crisis. These precarious, itinerant trades reappeared after just a few months, as necessity dictated, and partly explain the rapid spread of the virus in a poorly protected population.
Health. According to INEI, 88.4% of Peruvians have access to social security. In 2002, the Peruvian government introduced a comprehensive health insurance scheme (SIS, Seguro Integral de Salud) designed to guarantee access to basic health services for the poorest members of the population. Today, over 60% of the population is covered by this scheme, which means that very few people still benefit from full social protection. The SIS has yet to prove its worth, especially in rural areas where access to care and medicines is difficult. The Essalud public system has a poor reputation due to hospital overcrowding and lack of resources, while the private system is very expensive. In general, healthcare is very expensive and self-medication is the order of the day. Covid-19 has taken its toll on all social classes in Peru. It became impossible to find intensive care beds, but many victims also chose to die at home so as not to add an economic burden to their families. As elsewhere, the price of oxygen balloons skyrocketed, endless queues formed and, in some cases, only family solidarity enabled patients to be saved at totally exorbitant hospital costs.
Retirement is another subject where situations are very uneven. Since the early 1990s, Peru has restructured its national pension scheme, transferring social responsibility for the system to individual responsibility (compulsory individual savings and private, voluntary pension schemes). This private system covers only 7% of the poorest households. Former president Ollanta Humala introduced a minimum old-age pension in 2011 (the Pension 65 program). This system has over 800,000 beneficiaries who receive 250 soles every 2 months. Life expectancy is now an average of 73 years (rising to 76 in 2019). The middle classes have partly survived the crisis, as the government has opened up the right to recover these private retirement funds early, subject to a ceiling. A large number of them have applied for this measure, which has provided a solution to the "here and now". Between April 2020 and February 2021, 6.8 million members withdrew 32.7 million soles. Only 1 million affiliates left their pension funds untouched. This economic truth has helped to sustain the recovery and reactivation, but also heralds greater precariousness in the future.
The challenges of education
Like everything else, Peru has a two-tier education system. In the public sector, classes are often overcrowded. Teachers in the public sector also have a bad reputation: their salaries are so low that they have to look for other work on the side. In almost all schools (public and private), pupils wear uniforms. Those in the private (and very expensive) sector generally follow longer courses of study, sometimes all the way to university (which also has to be paid for). In both public and private schools, classes are often held in the morning. According to INEI (Institut National de Statistiques), the illiteracy rate in Peru is 5%. There is also a significant gender gap, affecting mainly women in rural areas, 25% of whom are illiterate.
The figures for access to education were nevertheless on a steady upward curve before the crisis, but schools have remained closed in Peru since the start of the Covid crisis, and have never reopened. Over a year and a half! The process of resuming semi-presidential classes began in April 2021 in rural areas where Internet access is difficult. Then the new government finally decided to let schools define "semi-presential openings on flexible, progressive, voluntary criteria and in complete safety with regard to health standards". In the most privileged cases, distance learning systems have made it possible to maintain a school link, but in 2020 alone, 230,000 children left the system. According to a study by the Peruvian Ministry of Health (Minsa) and Unicef, over 30% of the country's children and adolescents suffer from cognitive and mental deficiencies. The crisis will have taken a heavy toll on future generations. And the gaps have only widened during this long parenthesis in a country where an average of 50% of households have Internet access.
The arrival in office of a former provincial schoolteacher created a few illusions about an imminent and necessary reform of education, but these were soon drowned out by the "business" and no major reform has seen the light of day since.
Chronicles of a common racism
Since 2010, the Peruvian Ministry of Culture has had a Vice-Ministry of Interculturality to maintain vigilance and guidelines to avoid discrimination against any type of citizen or people. And discrimination is punishable by law. And yet, 53% of Peruvians consider their fellow citizens to be racist: towards Quechua or Aymara minorities with a poor command of the Spanish language, towards the Afro-Peruvian population or Amazonian ethnic groups. In a society with such a melting pot of cultures, racism is hard to define. Many little nicknames that could be considered discriminatory are used, for example, even within the family to refer to each other: almost every family has its "gordo" (fat), "flaco" (skinny), "chato" (small), "chino" (with Asian features), "negro o negra" (with darker skin color), "cholo" (with Andean features) or even "gringo" (the whitest of them all) without anyone taking offense. But these same adjectives in another context mark a deep-rooted social categorization. Here, we also read others through their skin color. The dominant system, white or mestizo and Spanish-speaking, is structurally exclusionary, and things are struggling to change. Indigenous and Afro-Peruvian people have little political, economic or cultural representation. Some young authors and thinkers are campaigning for a reawakening of identities within society, and things are gradually moving. Young Quechua singers such as Renata Flores and Liberato Kani are emerging. Fashion is also becoming more inclusive, taking identity markers (native fabrics, colors) and associating them with others. It's a long road ahead. Here again, the arrival on the political scene of Pedro Castillo, who almost constantly wears the traditional Cajamarca straw hat, is a strong symbolic step. The campaign itself was not devoid of the ordinary racism that only hinders a society that hides many of its most creative talents among these minorities. They, too, are bearers of the unrivalled resilience and constant reinvention that is the hallmark of this young Peruvian society, which is still searching, but which is gradually shaping a different face of Peru.
