Afro-Peruvian Leaders Meet with Commissioner Margarette May Macaulay of the IACHR’s Afro-descendant Rapporteurship

Washington, D.C., July 10, 2017 – On July 8 in Lima, Peru, the International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights, with support from our counterpart, the Centro de Desarrollo de la Mujer Negra Peruana (CEDEMUNEP), organized a private dialogue between Afro-Peruvian leaders and Commissioner Margarette May Macaulay, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ (IACHR) Rapporteur on the Rights of Women and Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons of African Descent and Against Racial Discrimination. The Institute organized the meeting around the 163 Extraordinary Period of Sessions held by the IACHR in Lima July 3-7.

After a brief introduction to the Afro-descendant Rapporteurship and its principal functions by Elvia Duque, the Institute’s Program Officer, Commissioner Macaulay emphasized the importance of maintaining constant communication with the Rapporteurship and making use of the IACHR’s different tools to raise awareness about the reality faced by Afro-descendants and their demands.

Issues discussed during the dialogue included the upcoming census to be carried out in October 2017, the first to include the Afro-descendant variable since 1940; the role of the media in gender and children’s issues; and the situation of Afro-descendants in education and employment. Regarding the census, participants emphasized the lack of a public campaign and support from the government to promote the different self-identification categories, especially those used for the Afro-Peruvian population—work which has had to be carried out by Afro-Peruvian organizations without State support. Organizations present also expressed their apprehension regarding the roles to be assumed by survey takers during the census.

Participants explained how the media continues to promote racial stereotypes that have particularly negative effects on Afro-Peruvian children and youth. In addition, they explained how a lack of access to education—especially higher education—is a multiplying factor in the inequality and poverty suffered by Afro-Peruvians. Patricia Quispe, Councilperson from Pueblo Nuevo, told of the large number of Afro-Peruvian children who lack basic identity documents, a problem that also affects their parents and which hinders their access to education and health care.

During the meeting, Azucena Algedones spoke of the racial discrimination case she brought to the judicial system after she was unjustly fired—one instance of the pervasive discrimination that still exists in the Peruvian labor market. Ms. Algedones said she would like to have the IACHR consider her case.

The Commissioner took attentive note of the testimony of those present, underscoring the importance of submitting detailed reports to the rapporteurships and continuing to advocate for the ratification of the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance, which will be key to providing the tools necessary to combat racial discrimination and improve the lives of the Afro-Peruvian population.

The Institute on “Afro-Peruvian Art Ahead of the 2017 Census: Be Seen, Be Counted”

Lima, Peru | December 20, 2016 The Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights, working alongside the Center for the Development of Afro-Peruvian Women (CEDEMUNEP), organized a seminar entitled “Afro-Peruvian Art ahead of the 2017 Census: Be Seen, Be Counted”. The goal of the one-day conference, which took place in Lima, Peru, was to disseminate information and sensitize key members of the Afro-Peruvian artistic community about the importance of the upcoming 2017 National Population and Housing Census.

The seminar was held in the Peruvian Congress’ Quiñones Room and was attended by well-known personalities from Afro-Peruvian show business, such as Chumbiauca Sotelo, known as “Cholo Chumbiauca”; Juan Medrano “Cotito”; Alfredo Valiente; and Porfirio Cartagena “Fido”; among many others. Juan Carlos Del Águila, President of the Congressional Foreign Relations Committee, opened the seminar by encouraging the participants to approach their congressmen to continue promoting actions in favor of the Afro-Peruvian community.

The conference was divided into two panels. The first featured the participation of the head of the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI), Anibal Sánchez, who reported on the background and mechanisms of the National Population and Housing Census in Peru, as well as other censuses, which make it possible to gather information about the percentage of Afro-Peruvians in the population and their quality of life. In addition, he informed the public about the change of date for the census, which will be pushed from June to possibly September 2017. On behalf of the Ministry of Culture’s Department of Public Policies for the Afro-Peruvian Population, Carlos Sánchez reported on several specialized studies on the Afro-Peruvian population carried out with the support of said Ministry. These reports revealed indicators of poverty, health, housing, education, employment and perceptions of racial discrimination.

Concluding the first panel was the presentation of Luis Sandoval, Director of the Millennium Theater Group, who emphasized the positive role, held for many years by Afro-Peruvian artists and cultural groups, of reviving and promoting Afro-Peruvian culture, as well as everyone who constantly works to increase the self-esteem of the Afro-Peruvian community. All panelists emphasized the lack of statistical data on the Afro-Peruvian population and the negative repercussions of this gap in the design of public policies at the local, regional, and national levels.

The second panel included Elvia Duque, Latin America Program Officer at the Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights; Cecilia Ramírez, Director of the Center for the Development of Afro-Peruvian Women – CEDEMUNEP; and Danny Areas, Director of the Únete Afro Group. The panel urged Afro-Peruvian celebrities linked to entertainment and sports to broadcast a message and spread awareness on the 2017 Census, given they have the capacity to convene groups and reach all populations sectors. Likewise, a strong plea was made for them to join the Be Seen, Be Counted campaign, and to use their artistic expressions through music, dance, and painting, among others, or recognition as athletes to promote: 1) ethnic/racial self-identification according to the concepts likely to be used in the 2017 census, and 2) education for families so that they request census interviewers to ask the ethnic/racial self-identification question.

Despite the 2017 census process – and more specifically the topic of Ethnic/Racial self-identification – being discussed and worked on for the past two years, many celebrities do not know the structure of the survey question about ethnic/racial identification designed for the Afro-Peruvian population, and the concepts that will likely be included in it. Both INEI Chief Anibal Sánchez and CEDEMUNEP Director Cecilia Ramírez discussed the possible question to be used, as well as the response options that may be used in the 2017 census, which are: Negro (Black), Mulato (Mulatto/Mixed), Moreno (Brown), Zambo Afroperuano (Mixed African and Amerindian) and Afrodescendiente (Afro-descendant).

The event participants voiced their discontent that the Afro-Peruvian movement has not yet undertaken concrete efforts to link the artistic and celebrity sector in supporting important themes for the Afro-Peruvian community. Therefore, the seminar was an important step, as artists highlighted the need for new seminars to exchange experiences and generate strategies of action to support the 2017 Census.

The Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights has been working with Afro-Peruvian organizations on the ground, to expand their participation in the 2017 Census.

Peru Announces signing of the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Intolerance as well as the Inter-American Convention against All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance.

Lima, Peru. September 20, 2016. Augusto Buzán, Minister of Human Rights from the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, announced on September 20 that Peru has subscribed to the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance, and the Inter-American Convention against All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance. The announcement took place at an event organized by the Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights and the Centro de Desarrollo de la Mujer Negra Peruana (CEDEMUNEP), titled “The Current Process of the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance.”

According to the September 7 edition of the official journal El Peruano, a copy of which was obtained by the Institute, it was resolved in Art. 1 to “delegate the necessary faculties to Ambassador Ana Rosa Valdivieso Santa Maria, Permanent Representative of Peru to the Organization of American States (OAS), to subscribe to the Inter-American Convention Against Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of Intolerance.”

“This announcement means that the event’s goals have been achieved,” said Cecilia Ramirez, Executive Director of the CEDEMUNEP. “Half of the work is done,” Ramírez added, “and this shows the importance of the topics of race and discrimination for the newly-elected government of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynsky.”

Afro-Peruvian attorney Mariela Noles Cotito also participated as a speaker at the event. Notes Cotito presented the findings of a policy paper she drafted on the importance Peru becoming a party to the Convention. Participants in the event congratulated Peru for signing the Conventions and indicated that they will begin the necessary advocacy efforts so that the Peruvian Congress ratifies both treaties.

“The signing by Peru of both Conventions is a step in the right direction to recognize and address the structural racism that affects not only Afro-Peruvians, but also the indigenous population,” said Carlos Quesada, Executive Director of the Institute.

By signing, Peru becomes the 12th country in the region to sign the Convention; to date it has been ratified by Costa Rica, which did so in August.

Be seen. Be counted! Inclusion of the ethnic variable in the upcoming Peruvian National Census 2017

The Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights, in partnership with the Center for Afro Peruvian Women’s Development – CEDEMUNEP – carried out two training sessions in Peru, in the northern city of Piura and the southern city of Ica. In both workshops, there were representatives from the Regional Ombudsman’s Office, the National Institute of Statistics and Information (INEI), Directors, Managers of education, health officials, social development, mayors of Afro-descendant communities and Afro-Peruvian leaders. It’s important to highlight the support of both local governments of Piura and Ica throughout the events.

These workshops aimed to make government officials and local representatives aware of the importance of inclusion for Afrodescendants in the 2017 census. To promote the cross-institutional dialogue between local government and community representatives, as well as the role of these bodies in the 2017 census, and to generate strategic partnerships for the creation of actions aimed at encouraging Afro-Peruvians in these communities to actively participate with an appropriate self-identification, according to the concepts used on the 2017 census.

Both events helped identify the lack of information and promotion of the 2017 census to the Afro-Peruvian population, as well as the urgency for awareness campaigns directed towards the Afro-Peruvian population to be set in place in order to adequately respond to the question of ethnic identification that is included in the census.

Some of the main agreements reached at both meetings included:

• Representatives of the Government of Piura and Ica confirmed their commitment to the Afro-Peruvian population, and the importance of developing a plan of action in the buildup to the census. The Government of Piura was represented by Mr. Hernan Garcia Cabrera, and a dialogue with Mr. Jose Luis Calle Sosa. The Government of Ica was represented by Karim Polack Alejo.
• Similarly, participants in both events, from both government and community, agreed on the need to work together to create tools, mainly audiovisual, of awareness for the Afro-Peruvian population.
• Pedro Periche Querevalú, Regional Director of Education in Pura, offered his support for the distribution of information and materials in the region.

The Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights is pleased to support these activities, while continuing to highlight our objective of increasing the visibility of the Afro-Peruvian population, in preparation and realization of the 2017 census. We hope the census allows for the development of tools necessary for the creation of public policies aimed at the Afro-Peruvian population.

For more information, (in Spanish) you may visit the press notes at the following links:

http://walac.pe/analizaran-derechos-de-los-afroperuanos-en-la-region-piura/

http://rpp.pe/peru/piura/piura-comunidad-afrodescendiente-busca-ser-incluida-en-censo-2017-noticia-980982

http://www.regionpiura.gob.pe/index.php?pag=17&id=1554&per=2016

Towards the Inclusion of the Afro-Descendant Variable in Peru’s Official Data

On February 12-13, the Centro de Desarrollo de la Mujer Negra Peruana [Center for the Development of Black Peruvian Women] and the Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights held a Workshop Toward the Inclusion of the Afro-Descendent Variable in Official Data, in Lima, Peru, with the goal of defining the participation of Afro-Peruvians in the upcoming 2017 National Census. The workshop was funded by the Andean Division of the Ford Foundation.

Eighteen members of Peruvian civil society participated in the event, along with several government representatives, including Owen Lay, Director of Policy for Afro-Peruvians and the Vice-Minister of Intercultural Affairs, who spoke to participants about the preliminary results of Special Study on the Afro-Peruvian Population, a project undertaken last year whose objectives were, amongst other goals, to gather specific, disaggregated information about Afro-Peruvians’ social, economic and cultural reality.

Mr. Lay emphasized that the Special Study was not a complete census but merely a survey. Nevertheless, he was able to offer several important findings from the study: for example, that 37% of those surveyed earned less than the minimum wage of (750 soles, USD $244) and that 55% were self-employed. One disturbing finding was that 58% of respondents felt that racial discrimination was an important factor in Afro-Peruvians’ poverty.

In addition, Dante Ponce, from the Desk on Human Rights and Persons with Disabilities of the Peruvian Ombudsman’s Office underscored that for the Office of the Ombudsman it was important to see that “in fact the State had heeded their recommendation to realize a Special Survey, even if the survey was to have been carried out by the National Institute for Statistics and Information Technology (INEI) but was in fact undertaken by the Vice-Ministry for Intercultural Affairs.

Oswaldo Bilbao from the Centro de Desarrollo Étnico Comunitario [Center for Community and Ethnic Development] and Cecilia Ramírez from CEDEMUNEP, both members of the Inter-institutional Technical Committee on Statistics and Ethnicity announced their satisfaction that, in a change from past surveys, the term moreno (dark-skinned), a term frequently used by Afro-Peruvians in self-identification, had been included in INEI’s preliminary testing that occurred in 2014.

Nancy Hidalgo, National Director of Censuses and Surveys at INEI affirmed that although the census will occur in 2017 much work has already begun, including during the last year the carrying out of “114 cartographic examinations in Highlands districts  in advance of the 2017 census.” Hidalgo also underscored the role of civil society in raising awareness amongst the Afro-Peruvian population at large. Finally, she reminded participants that INEI’s role is not to make policy but rather to provide information and statistics to policy-makers.

Lastly, Belinda Jackson-Farrier, Cultural Affairs Officer and Jorge Rivera, Cultural Specialist at the US Embassy in Peru, affirmed the commitment of the Embassy to work with Afro-Peruvians and indigenous peoples of Peru, and mentioned the Embassy’s support of citizen participation in the census process. In addition, the American representatives highlighted the Embassy’s cultural programming with respect to Afro-Peruvians and made mention of scholarships and English-language training for Afro-Peruvians and indigenous Peruvians.

Peruvian Afro-Descendant Leaders Analyze Visibilization Strategies for the 2017 Census

On September 14^th and 15^th, the Institute for Race, Equality and Human Rights and the Centro de Desarrollo de la Mujer Negra Peruana [Center for the Development for Black Peruvian Women] (CEDEMUNEPP) organized the Workshop Toward the Inclusion of the Afro-descendant Variable in Official Data, where Afro-Peruvian leaders met to address such topics as a communication strategy to promote the Afro-descendant agenda, the inclusion of the ethnic variable in official data-collection, the promotion of self-identification amongst the Afro-Peruvian population and strategies for alliances with other ethnic groups with similar demands.

At the meeting, the Executive Director of the Institute for Race, Equality and Human Rights, Carlos Quesada, highlighted the strengthening of Afro-Peruvian organizations in their leadership role in pressing the demands of Afro-Peruvians in the public sphere. “We should congratulate ourselves on our progress. No longer are we passive objects of study and analysis. Now we are assertive activists proposing actions directed toward generating positive responses from the State,” said Quesada.

Specialists in Afro-descendant issues participated in the event, including Jader Gómez Caicedo, of the Proceso de Comunidades Negras [Process of Black Communities] (PCN) of Colombia, and Paola Yáñez, of the Red Nacional de Mujeres Afrobolivianas [National Network of Afro-Bolivian Women], both of whom shared their experiences in working toward heightening the visibility of Afro-descendant populations in the censuses of Colombia and Bolivia, respectively.

Gómez Caicedo underlined the dangers in keeping the category “mestizo” [mixed-descent] in the census questionnaire, given that it could mask situations of racial discrimination as well as subtract from the count of Afro-descendants and other ethnicities in Peru.  For her part, Paola Yáñez shared her experience of utilizing unconventional communication strategies in order to gain constitutional recognition for Afro-Bolivians, and argued that use of unconventional communication methods is a powerful tool to express what official texts have denied about the presence, contributions and importance of the region’s Afro-descendants.

Cecilia Ramírez, Executive Director of CEDEMUNEP, emphasized the need for all of the present organizations to include in their agendas the matter of the 2017 census as a way to strengthen their demands on the Peruvian government. Participants also heard presentations from the Peruvian National Institute on Statistics (INEI) on the advancements made on the inclusion of the ethnic variable in the frequent surveys known as National Home Survey (Encuesta Nacional de Hogares, ENNAHO) as well as findings that shed light on the situation of exclusion suffered by the Afro-Peruvian population. In addition, the National Director for Policy on the Afro-Peruvian Population, Owen Lay González, assured participants that the 2017 census will show the complete picture of the socioeconomic standstill of Afro-Peruvians and will document their limited access to health care, education and employment.

The Workshop included two days of work and interaction. It culminated in the joint presentation of an impact plan and the preparation of strategies to strengthen the participation of Afro-Peruvians in the Peruvian Inter-institutional Technical Committee on Statistics on Ethnicity, a participatory space responsible for the inclusion of ethnic variable in the 2017 census.

Use of Informal Communication Key to Heighten the Visibility of the Afro-Bolivian Population

“The recognition of Afro-Bolivian people began amid a very difficult political and social situation. In 2009 there existed a total negation of the presence of Afro-descendants in a country considered to be clearly indigenous,” noted Paola Yáñez of the Red Nacional de Mujeres Afrobolivianas [National Network of Afro-Bolivian Women] during the Workshop Toward the Inclusion of the Afro-descendant Variable in Official Data, where Afro-Peruvian leaders convened in Lima, Peru, at the invitation of the Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights and Centro de Desarrollo de la Mujer Negra Peruana [the Center for the Development of Black Peruvian Women].

The specialist said that to meet this challenge it was necessary to confront a corporate media that was hostile toward the recognition of Afro-Bolivianos.

“To put the plight of Afro-Bolivians on the social agenda we turned to unconventional public communication methods. Music, for example, became the voice of a history ignored in books,” Yáñez said. Yáñez underscored that although Afro-Bolivians have received constitutional recognition, there still remains much work to be done. “We need disaggregated statistics in order to make an impact on the Decade For People of African Descent.”

Finally, the representative of the National Association of Afro-Bolivian Women emphasized the necessity of taking advantage of the international agenda in order to best advance the demands of Afro-descendants, making reference to the advancement of a human development agenda for Afro-descendant men and women that takes advantage of the UN Decade for People of African Descent and new objectives for sustainable development.