Peru protests against gender violence draw 50,000

Some 50,000 people marched Saturday in Peru’s capital and other cities, police said, to protest rampant violence against women in a highly conservative society.

The country recorded 95 murders of women last year. An additional 54 have taken place this year, together with 118 attempts, according to official figures.

Roughly a third of the victims had complained about their aggressors before the attacks, a government human rights unit says.

One woman was disfigured when her husband threw a brick at her in recent days, while others were savagely beaten by their partners.

Shirley Pajuelo’s husband, the father of their six children, threw a brick that hit her eye because he said the meal she had served had too much garlic.

Another three women died last week in Peru from domestic violence.

President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski joined thousands of demonstrators in Lima marching in support of the “Ni una menos” (Not One Less) movement. They held banners and posters condemning gender violence and gender-based killings.

Peru ranks third in the world — behind just Bangladesh and Ethiopia — in the number of women aged 15 to 49 who are victims of domestic sexual violence, according to the World Health Organization.

Kuczynski urged Peruvians on Twitter to “reject all acts of inequality and masochistic violence.”

Seventy-four percent of people in Lima consider Peruvian society to be masochistic, according to polls released Saturday, which also found that 53 percent said a woman dressed in a mini-skirt is responsible if she gets raped.