Gender-based violence and education in Peru: Towards a school that protects and transforms
Education is often seen as a catalyst for social change and for transforming situations of inequality and violence. From its social role, education is a space for reviewing, modifying and re-creating society for new generations. From its institutional role, the school is a space for protection that identifies risks and deals with situations of violence that violate children and adolescents. For this reason, its transformative and protective potential with respect to gender-based violence has been recognised as key for more than three decades.
However, when we review both demands in Peru, we see with concern that we still have a lot of work to do to ensure that schools are more conducive to protection and equitable trajectories, particularly in those places where the family, the community or the environment are spaces where violence against girls and adolescents is reproduced.
For example, in rural Peru, violence against girls and adolescents in Peru is directly related to lack of access to opportunities and economic dependence: 46% of Peruvian women in rural areas between the ages of 14 and 29 have no income of their own and are economically dependent on a man (INEI, 2017). Furthermore, given the lack of access to comprehensive sex education, 22.7% of adolescent women in rural areas (15-19 years old) are already mothers, according to the Encuesta Demográfica y de Salud Familiar 2018 (2018 Demographic and Family Health Survey) (INEI, 2018). Likewise, interrupted educational trajectories are linked to micromachismo, real and symbolic violence and are, in themselves, a form of violence. Only 6.2% of rural women manage to access and complete higher education (ENDES, 2018). Changing this reality implies being able to truly ensure a gender-sensitive education that serves all students equally.
In addition to strengthening the social role of education, we, in our country, must ensure that schools are protective spaces, free of violence. According to the Ministry of Education's SISEVE portal, at least 46% of reported cases of sexual violence against girls and adolescent women are perpetrated by school staff (MINEDU, 2018). This situation is unacceptable and weakens the school's institutional capacity to exercise a protective role, violating the right to education and the physical and mental well-being of girls and adolescents.
Since 2018, UNESCO Peru has been implementing Horizontes (Horizons), a rural secondary education programme, which aims to transform rural secondary schools to ensure that they offer a relevant educational offer that provides adolescents with dual certification and socio-emotional skills to develop their life projects in the context of a protective school and community.
The Horizontes programme strengthens gender-equitable education, supports comprehensive sexuality education for rural adolescent girls, and raises awareness and restores the protective role of the school to ensure attention to gender gaps and prevent violence in schools, promoting the establishment of safe spaces, well-being and protection.
Our commitment is developed with a three-level strategy in schools: prevent - address - repair. Prevent by raising awareness among educational actors, families and local authorities to generate agreements on protection and non-violence, while strengthening the socio-emotional skills of adolescents and providing them with technical and productive tools that allow them greater capacity to develop their life projects; to address, through clear protocols, inter-institutional alliances and legal and psychological support in cases of violence; and to repair, linking with relevant care capacity and generating resilience in the community to accompany the process of educational reintegration of adolescents who are victims of violence or in a situation of early pregnancy.
In Ayacucho, 93% of teachers have developed preventive sessions by reviewing concepts, cases, activities and guidance on how to act in the face of risk factors. In the eleven schools of the Programme, 1,211 students have been sensitised on protection against all types of violence, in coordination with the Centro de Emergencia de la Mujer (Women's Emergency Centre) (CEM) of Cangallo and Fajardo. Protection tools have also been developed for vulnerable situations and support networks, people, or entities that are key to protection have been identified.
In Amazonas, workshops have been held with administrators and teachers, promoting the importance of involving all actors in the educational community into protection. The initiative "Sácale Tarjeta Roja a la Violencia" (Give Violence the Red Card) and the "teatro ambulante" (itinerant theatre) are also reported. In addition, in Amazonas there has been coordination with the School Coexistence School of the Local Education Management Unit (UGEL) Condorcanqui to strengthen the issue of protocols for attention to school violence and there is coordination with the Centro de Emergencia de la Mujer (Women's Emergency Centre) to contribute to the workshops on school violence.
In Piura, a network of 83 tutors from Horizontes (Horizons) schools is being furthered and trained in adolescent protection. The training includes 4 modules on risk factors, regulatory framework for protection, risk in social networks, actions and strategies to use in situations of violence. In addition, there is a specialist to deal with serious cases through home visits and coordination with related institutions (health centres, community centres, DEMUNA, police, women's emergency centre) to request information or make referrals.
In Cusco, guidance and training has been provided to tutors, as prejudices, stereotyped concepts, gender biases, among others, were observed. Eight schools have incorporated the protocols of attention in situations of violence and risk into the tutoring plans, after a review and training of the personnel involved.
With these actions we want to show that it is possible to have a rural secondary school that transforms and protects with gender equity through commitment, awareness and action. Our challenge is that every school in Peru can also join in this change.