Closing of the Peruvian Congress: "May the new parliamentary groups embrace diversity"
Fujimorism and its allies have continually obstructed any gender bill.
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By Vero Ferrari
September 30, 2019, will be remembered as a historic day for all Peruvians, and especially for the LGBTQ+ community. On that day, President Martín Vizcarra decided to dissolve a Congress co-opted by fundamentalist forces and called for parliamentary elections, citing the lack of transparency of the Fujimori bloc and its allies.
Hours later, Congress responded by approving Vizcarra's suspension from presidential duties for 12 months due to "temporary incapacity." Vice President Mercedes Aráoz was sworn in as "acting president" of the country, though she resigned the following day.
Fujimorism against the rights of LGBT people
Since the legislature began in 2016, Fujimorism opposed any progress on rights in education or recognition; thus, the bills on civil union, equal marriage, decriminalization of abortion for rape, and gender identity were frozen in committees with no possibility of going to the Plenary of Parliament to be voted on.
Legislative Decree No. 1323, which sought to punish hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation and gender identity, was partially repealed by this conservative political class led by the Fuerza Popular congressmen allied with evangelical congressmen. Fortunately, the president never acknowledged this repeal, so the decree remains in effect and a tool for punishing discrimination.
[READ ALSO: The State is the main agent of violence against LGBT+ people in Peru]
Fujimorism and its allies have continually obstructed any bill that included a gender perspective, preventing, for example, a prison policy with this focus to reduce the violence experienced by lesbian, bisexual and trans women, and gay, bisexual and trans men in prison.
They have also legally persecuted those who dared to address these issues within the Ministries. Thus, they ensured that Ministers of Education were continually forced to resign for attempting to protect gender-focused educational policies, and that specialists working on these issues were sanctioned administratively and legally under the pretext of "the best interests of the child and good morals," losing their jobs and being subjected to congressional investigative committees with the sole purpose of harassing them, which affected them both economically and psychologically.
[READ ALSO: The crusade against the gender approach in Peru]
But they're gone now. The people told them no, that enough was enough, and they marched every week demanding they all leave, and the president listened. They've all been gone since the 30th, and their attempts to impeach the president and install the vice president in his place, usurping his position, have had no support or legitimacy; nobody wants them anymore.
In four months, there will be new elections to choose 130 members of Congress. We will remain vigilant to ensure that they do not represent the most reactionary agendas, so that we can live in a country that respects and embraces its diversity. We have long deserved good people in those positions, including LGBTQ+ individuals fighting for the State to redress and pay the historical debt it owes us all.
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