THE HOLY SEE AND THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD IN PERU A Peruvian NGO Report on How the Holy See’s Laws Interfere with Peru’s Compliance to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Centre for the Promotion and Defense of Reproductive and Sexual Rights (PROMSEX) and Catholics for a Free Choice © 2005, Catholics for a Free Choice INTRODUCTION Since 2002, Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC) has partnered with children’s rights organizations and progressive Catholic groups on the national level to produce and submit Shadow Reports to the Commission on the Rights of the Child (CRC) during its examination of the periodic reports submitted by various States Parties. The reason for these reports is to help the committee conduct a comprehensive analysis of the laws and the public policies of a country and how the laws of the Holy See may compromise them. As a country that has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Peru is obliged to enforce the convention. However, Catholic clergy in Peru are subject to the laws of the Holy See, and the Holy See regards its laws as primary. Some of the laws governing Catholic priests contradict legislation protecting Peruvian children. As a result, Peru is in danger of not meeting its obligations to the Convention because Catholic priests may consider themselves to be subject to Holy See law and not Peruvian law. The Centre for the Promotion and Defense of Reproductive and Sexual Rights (PROMSEX) and CFFC submit this report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child to explain how the laws of the Holy See come into conflict with Peruvian child-protection laws. This conflict puts children at risk of exploitation and abuse by Catholic clergy and religious. The objective of this report is to recognize the implications of the Holy See’s laws as they relate to the abuse of children and to ensure that the Catholic church in Peru obeys both Peruvian law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It should be noted that the Holy See is also a signatory of the Convention, but has not fulfilled its reporting requirements since 1997. ABOUT THIS REPORT This report will explore the relation between the Peruvian state and the Holy See. The report will provide an overview of certain laws of the Holy See around clergy sexual abuse and how those laws seek to protect the institutional Catholic church and not the victims of clergy sexual abuse. Examples of two specific cases will illustrate how the Catholic church does not protect children from abuse and how their actions undermine Peruvian law that seeks to protect vulnerable children.
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Catholics for a Free Choice THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN PERU The Agreement between the Holy See and the Republic of Peru Peru is a predominantly Catholic country. According to the last official national survey in 1993, 89.03% of people over 12 years of age considered themselves Catholic, 6.73% considered themselves Evangelicals and 4.32% considered themselves to be another or no religion at all. While the Peruvian state is a lay state, on July 19, 1980, during the final days of dictatorship, Peru signed an agreement of cooperation with the Holy See that recognized the Catholic church in Peru as fully independent and autonomous. In the agreement, the Peruvian state gives the church “suitable cooperation” in order to “improve the fulfillment of its service to the national community” and as “recognition of the important part the church played in the historical, cultural and moral formation of the country.” In Article 8 of this agreement, the Peruvian state gives preferential treatment to the church in education, personal income, institutional income, taxes and properties. The agreement guarantees the absolute freedom of the church to establish private educational entities that are protected by the law. It also states that Catholic religious education will be part of the curriculum in Peru’s public schools. The teachers of these courses must be approved by the bishops and this approval to teach can be withdrawn at any time. There are 1,030 centers of education set up and run by Catholic congregations receiving state funding. Although Article 50 of the Peruvian Constitution asserts that the State recognizes the Catholic church as an important element in the historical, cultural and moral formation of Peru, and lends its cooperation to the church, the Constitution also states that the government respects other denominations and may establish forms of cooperation with them. It should also be noted that each person has the inalienable right to freedom from discrimination based on religion or beliefs and the right to freedom of conscience and religion. THE POLICY OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE PERUVIAN CLERGY IN THE FACE OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE In 2001, the Holy See issued a document entitled Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela,1 instituting a little publicized but important change in the Catholic church’s canon law. In this document, which supersedes canon law, the Holy See directs all the bishops of the world to inform one of its offices, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, if they receive an allegation of child sexual abuse by a cleric. This same law prohibits the bishops or other church authorities from
1
John Paul II, Apostolic Letter motu proprio, Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, April 30, 2001, sent by letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to all Catholic bishops in the world on May 18, 2001 (Epistula ad totius Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopos aliosque Ordinarios et Hierarchas interesse habentes de <<delictis gravioribus>> eidem Congregationi pro Doctrina Fidei<< reservatis>>), Acta Apostolicae Sedis 93 (2001) 737–739 and 785–788 respectively. See http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/doc_dis_index.htm, accessed December 15, 2004.
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Catholics for a Free Choice taking any action beyond a preliminary investigation of the allegation without further direction from the Holy See’s delegate.2 According to the new law, this office of the Holy See may, at its discretion, conduct an inquiry itself or transmit norms to the local ecclesiastical authority explaining how to proceed. These cases, the law states, are “subject to the pontifical secret.” This is the Holy See’s highest level of confidentiality—just short of the absolute secrecy required by sacramental confession—and reserves the right for the Holy See alone to punish any party who reveals information about clerical sexual abuse of children. Furthermore, the document mandates that no one but a priest may be involved in the proceedings concerning clergy sexual abuse of minors.3 These provisions raise questions about the integrity of the church’s internal processes in dealing with cases of molestation and child abuse, as well as questions of how this law might conflict with laws of the geographically defined jurisdictions in which the subjects of the Holy See reside. These legal requirements make clear two facts: (1) The Holy See has overtly claimed responsibility for managing these cases, and (2) The Holy See does not intend to comply fully with national laws that protect minors from clergy abuse, nor with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Holy See’s unwillingness to comply with the Convention is demonstrated in its secrecy requirements that skirt the reporting requirements of Article 44. This frustrates legitimate efforts of other States party to the Convention, such as Peru, by advocating circumvention of their laws in favor of the Holy See’s new secret procedures. Overall, the Holy See’s law does provide redress and some protection for children in cases of sexual abuse, and it does provide for the punishment of clergy and religious who sexually abuse children. The existence of law, however, is of little use if the law is not enforced. The many canon laws relating to this issue have been consistently ignored and inadequately or wrongly applied in favor of the church authorities and its institutional image. The inevitable conclusion that could be reached is that the church participates in civil activities when laws governing secular activity benefit them. Otherwise, they ignore these laws with impunity. Such an arbitrary stance definitely runs counter to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and undermines the Peruvian government’s compliance to the Convention.
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The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (commonly abbreviated CDF), founded in 1542 by Pope Paul III, is one of the departments of the Vatican that assists the pope in governing the Catholic church. It was originally called the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, as its duty was to defend the church from heresy. It is the oldest of the Curia’s nine congregations. The congregation says the “Activity of the Holy See,” in conformity with its raison d’etre, promotes in a collegial fashion encounters and initiatives to “spread sound doctrine and defend those points of Christian tradition which seem in danger because of new and unacceptable doctrines.” See the Vatican website: http://www.vatican.va, accessed 15 December 2004. 3 See note 1 above.
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Catholics for a Free Choice CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE OF MINORS IN PERU Given the silence in relation to the topic of clergy sexual abuse, it is very difficult to collect information and data. There is no precise information available, either at the judicial level or in the schools, and the Catholic church does not make cases of clergy sexual abuse available to the public. For these reasons, it is not possible to provide complete statistics. To fill this void, we have interviewed many people including six key informants: three members of the clergy who have occupied high-level hierarchical positions of monsignors (all now retired); one female lawyer belonging to a feminist organization who has supported a judicial process against a priest accused of sexually abusing a boy; one male lawyer who is a specialist in access to public information; and a feminist activist and psychologist who for some years worked in a religious educational organization. We have also done an exhaustive review of newspapers and magazines that published information about the only case of this nature that came to the attention of the public. Regarding the interviews carried out with members of the hierarchy of the Peruvian Catholic church, their testimonies show a denial of child sexual abuse on the part of the clergy, or at least they only accept the existence of isolated cases. Compounded with this denial is the fact that no norms of prevention or sanctions have been drafted. Some agreements made among the bishops could exist, but they have not been disclosed. These testimonies include the following statements: “About topics such as sexual abuse one doesn’t talk since cases of such a nature are not known.” “There are no cases like these; I have never had to face something like that from the diocese in which I have worked. Also, problems such as ‘pedophilia’ are more characteristic of the priests on the coast of North America where indeed they have registered abuses of that nature, but in Peru they have never been talked about, never been known.”4 According to one of the interviewees, when a case of such a nature comes to light, the bishop calls the priest and if he recognizes his responsibility in the acts, a discrete sanction is applied. The sanction can be a transfer to another diocese, psychological treatment, suspension or separation from his priestly works. However, when he was asked of immediate measures that were taken during an investigation, the interviewee said that the church did not take this type of measure, thus causing one to presume the accused would continue carrying out the same activities with the risk of continuing to cause the same harm. However, the monsignor acknowledged that this is not true for a lay teacher accused of the same crime, as he or she is immediately transferred to an administrative post out of contact with children. The priests we interviewed pointed out that in such cases where the accused does not admit his involvement in acts of sexual abuse, he has to submit to a tribunal that would apply the canon law. According to them, the application of the latter does not exclude a penal judicial 4
An interview carried out with the bishop of the Dominicans and a member of the ecclesiastic tribunal.
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Catholics for a Free Choice investigation since they are parallel. However, it is a known fact that there is not a single case that the ecclesiastical authorities have reported to the legal authorities because, according to them, this can be construed as libel as it damages the image of the church. It is important to point out that in Peru the legal norm says that any person who knows of a crime should formulate an accusation to the competent authority, even more so if children and adolescents are involved. All the interviewees agreed that in the event of finding a priest guilty, the accused must, as an individual, compensate the victim; the church and the cleric’s congregation should not be involved in this process. This policy is questionable, taking into account that it is the congregation that endorses one of its members to carry out functions of a formative and protective character of children, that many of these acts of violence take place in environments that belong to the church, and that the perpetrator’s personal goods, in contrast to the lay members of the church, belong to the church. Finally, the interviewees consider that the sexual abuse of children “is not a pastoral concern” and the church is more concerned with poverty and social injustice. REPORTED CASES The case of Father Martin and the sexual abuse of minors In response to the accusation of harassment and rape of two boys by Fr. Martin Sánchez, the director of “Hogar de Cristo,” the Archdiocese of Lima suspended him from the priesthood in April 2003. The cause of the suspension was never disclosed although it was alleged that Sánchez should take “time so that he can meditate on the issue” and to do what is necessary. After the suspension, the Second Penal Office decided to open an investigation of crimes against the sexual freedom and acts that cause shame to children younger than 14 years old, due to the declarations published in various newspapers and on television. The Office requested a psychological and psychiatric exam to establish Father Martin’s sexual behavior. The report concluded that there were no signs of psychopathic behavior either in thought or actions, rational or emotional, that he had no fears, that he had an appropriate attitude toward sex. Sánchez has denied being involved in sexual abuse and has said that he will put himself at the disposal of the attorney to be investigated. “I am neither homosexual nor corrupt,” he said, adding that these types of accusations do a lot of harm to the church. Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani said that the Sánchez case “is an entirely ecclesiastical matter.” In the same way, Fr. Luis Capelleti, professor of canonical law of the Papal Faculty of Theology of Lima, explained that the canonical process is private and that it is regrettable that the Sánchez case has emerged into the public realm. “The spirit of the process is not to punish, but to help the one being processed.” Referring to the accusations of homosexuality and pederasty, Capelleti said that “it is a lengthy process, it takes time depending on the way it is carried out...more important is to have a vision of faith.” These declarations reveal the concealment and complicity that take place when a crime is to be brought before the justice commission, as well as the indifference shown toward the abused children and their “invisibility.” 6
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It is important to mention that the Sánchez, despite the accusations and the suspension, has not stopped working in “Hogar de Cristo,” an institution that takes children off the street and provides food to the needy. The Case of Father Marco, a priest of a populous and poor area of Lima, accused of sexually abusing a 15 year-old boy The victim of Fr. Marco comes from a religious family. The mother was like an assistant of the church and with absolute faith. One day the boy’s behavior changed; he remained in resolute silence, sharp with a hard look, trying not to talk to anybody. Until one day the oldest brother and some friends of the neighborhood told the parents that the boy tried to commit suicide because he had been sexually abused. Nobody knew who the perpetrator was. However, the parents refused to believe it and claimed that he was demanding affection, and so without making any further inquiries began to pay him more attention. When his grades continued to drop the mother managed to get the boy to tell her who it was: “…he mentioned Father Marco, he looked at me and he cried and asked me not to tell anyone, even his dad….”5 The facts: In February 2000, Father Marco called the boy by phone and invited him to have breakfast and then to go for a walk. The mother was not concerned, after all he was with the priest and that gave her peace of mind. The boy got back late and then locked himself in his room, not saying anything. A week later the priest called the boy again but he refused to talk to him, saying that he had a stomach ache. According to the accusation made to the attorney, Fr. Marco took advantage of the moralreligious dependence of the boy and gradually he began to touch the boy’s body until, the next month, he ordered him to lie face down and subsequently pulled his track suit bottoms down. The accused pulled down his own shorts and, lying on top of him, he managed to penetrate the child, a situation that caused physical harm as indicated in the legal medical certificate. These events upset the victim and made him suicidal. The lawyer that took the case commented: “... But in spite of [the mother’s] faith and everything else, she decided to report the priest and tell us. She and the boy came here. There are two things that have changed her forever. One is the break with the church. This man had broken all of her preconceptions and trust in the ‘loving father’ who had anal intercourse with her son. And the desire of wanting to face the facts. This case was public knowledge in the south of Lima and the priest was withdrawn from the parish, with a letter from the Bishop Curruchaga6and in printed flyers communicated the poor health of Fr. Marco. It seems that this priest is very committed to the young people and the youths are fond of him. He had created a nice environment, so much so that the youths looked up to him and wanted to know in what clinic or hospital he was in order to visit him. 5
This is taken from the verbal declaration of the boy’s mother. Office of the Public Prosecutor of Permanent Turn. November 16, 2000. 6 November 21, 2000, the Diocese of Lurín tells the community of "Resuscitated Christ" that the “delicate state of health of P. Marco has caused his temporary absence from administrating the parish….”
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Catholics for a Free Choice "... What is to become of our life, our religious life, if a religious person does this to us? I reported this to the Attorneys’ Office because I am sure that they [the Catholic church] will try to cover it up among themselves. After presenting this accusation I will go to Father Eugenio Kirke who is still in Villa El Salvador…and to the Bishop of Lurín. I never want my son's name to come out…there are many children, many young ladies around this man, what might have happened before….”7 On December 4, 2000, the Penal Office formulated an accusation against Fr. Marco for a crime against sexual freedom—violation of a person of lesser authority—under Article 174 of the Penal Code. The process culminated with the filing of the penal process (this means that the process cannot continue) on May 2, 2005, since a link could not be proven between the priest and the harm done to the boy. Also, in this type of accusation, for sexual violence, the declarations of both parties keep the process going. At a certain point in the process the boy refused to continue. The priest highlighted this, saying that initially the boy had been so good and so collaborating and then he suddenly stopped, suggesting that the boy had been lying all along. Indeed, some accused the mother and boy of being crazy, which lead them to accuse a much-loved priest. “Our only way to continue looking for justice was a request to our own archbishop to discover the truth. He told us that nothing had happened—that it was an isolated case.”8 When we asked the lawyer in charge of the case about the influence of the canon law in the legislation of the State, and if he considered that there was overlap, the interviewee commented that in this case it had not even arrived at that level since there is a total denial of the facts. A particularly serious aspect of this case is that canon law does not even investigate the accusation but, on the contrary, hides the facts. As the lawyer said, “the sin is forgiven but not the scandal.” According to the testimony of clergy members, information of this type is not enough proof to put at risk centuries of work and it is better not to touch this type of problem, much less to bring it into the public arena. The prestige that priests have, Catholic priests and those of other religions, is an element that, according to the interviewees, must be protected. Since there is a lot of trust on the part of the faithful, this trust cannot be defrauded. This helps us to understand what the strategy of the church in Peru is and how cases like this are generally treated: with silence and minimization, the only thing possible when the victims are poor and do not know where they can report these actions or seek help.
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Extraction from verbal declaration of the boy’s mother. The declaration of the lawyer that took the case, Dra. Gina Yañez, Movement Manuela Ramos.
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Catholics for a Free Choice RECOMMENDATIONS It is important to determine the ways in which the Peruvian government can guarantee that children and adolescents coming in contact with the church, sometimes involuntarily, and are under the guide of its personnel, be protected against the sexual abuse and other forms of physical and psychological violence. To the Peruvian Government • The government of Peru should investigate and report on the problem of sexual abuse of minors committed by members of the Catholic church in Peru, and what measures have been taken to protect children from this type of abuse. • The government of Peru should carry out a comparative analysis of the legislation of the Holy See (canon law) and Peruvian legislation to determine those aspects where the Peruvian Catholic church does not comply with the Peruvian laws that protect the children in our country. • The government of Peru should also protect adolescents from sexual abuse and not allow them to be discriminated against by age, as in the current legislation where, as the victim’s age increases, the legal protections decrease. • The education ministry should encourage a restructuring of the guidelines regarding religious education and religious schools to revise the qualifications of teachers of religious education, including an exam of their pedagogical capacities and disciplinary measures for cases of abuse that arise. • The government of Peru should instill in children, through education, an awareness of their rights which include sexual rights. • The government of Peru should publish at a national level the laws that relate to abuse and sexual abuse of children and adolescents. • The government of Peru must draw up guidelines on sexual harassment, which many adolescents have to endure, in the following environments: workers in the home, educational centers and military and police institutions.9 To the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child • The Committee should request the Peruvian government to explain what measures have been taken to investigate the magnitude of such abuses and to avoid a recurrence. • The Committee should request a report from the Holy See on the incidence of clergy sexual abuse in Peru and the Holy See’s laws related to abuse and exploitation of minors by Catholic clergy and religious that may undermine national laws. To the Holy See • The Holy See is a signatory of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but it has not fulfilled its obligation to the committee to send a report since 1997. This should be rectified immediately and the report should inform in detail the magnitude of sexual abuses committed by Catholic clergy throughout the world, with a concrete plan to ensure that there is no repetition of abuses of this type. 9
See Recommendation related to sexual harassment, issued by the Ombudsman through Resolution Defensorial N° 28.2999/DP dated May 11, 2000, where several inadequacies are highlighted with regard to sexual abuse.
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Catholics for a Free Choice • • • • •
•
The Holy See should share with other states the measures that it has taken to eliminate the sexual abuse of children and adolescents by members of its church so that these measures can be seen as a reference and implemented. The Holy See should share with the Peruvian local authorities the names of contacts who can provide evidence and help in the prosecution of Catholic clergy implicated in the abuse of children or adolescents. The Holy See should pass on confessional secrets to the police authorities that involve crimes of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. The Holy See should create the necessary and accessible forums so that children and adolescents, or their representatives, can report crimes and defend their rights, guaranteeing the procedural integrity in the internal judicial and non-judicial processes. The Holy See should prohibit all clergy who have abused children to have any contact with children and adolescents in places such as parishes, schools, homes, Christian clubs (those being either Catholic or Christian), hospitals, missionary activities with children and youth, seminars and convents. The Holy See should create and maintain a public and accessible database with the data of members of the clergy who have been proven to have abused children so these people are prevented from committing this type of crime again.
To the Catholic church in Peru The Peruvian Catholic church should cooperate with the Peruvian justice system assuring that in the treatment of cases of sexual abuse on the part of members of its church irregularities do not take place, jeopardizing the investigative process. • The Peruvian Catholic church should work in combination with the Peruvian government in such a way as to facilitate the Holy See and the Peruvian government to put into practice everything agreed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. • The Peruvian Catholic church should not shirk its responsibility regarding the type of abuses mentioned by trying to solve them in private instead of respecting the law of the nation. The Peruvian Catholic church, including all its dioceses and prelatures, should accept the judicial, moral and economic responsibilities that arise when law suits or trials begin involving abuses committed by clergy or religious of the Catholic church. • The Peruvian Catholic church should provide help for the plaintiffs who are trying to locate members of the clergy who have committed these types of acts. • Committees of the church should be created to deal with problems of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and should include family members of victims and external experts in order to promote trust in the committees and ensure the complete protection of the children. • The Peruvian Catholic church should include in the curriculum in all Catholic schools, seminaries and religious institutes the prevention of sexual abuse. The church should not continue to maintain an outdated point of view that anything involving sexual education encourages promiscuity. This is an important and crucial preventative measure. To Peruvian NGOs involved in human rights work • In Peru there are organizations that work to improve the condition of children; however there is not a single organization that is specifically in charge of sexual abuse committed by priests or religious of the Catholic church. The Peruvian NGOs could focus on projects of this type to assure the protection of children. 10
Catholics for a Free Choice â&#x20AC;˘
All over Peru the sexual behavior of priests and religious of the Catholic church, orders and dioceses is common knowledge (i.e. propositions to and sexual relationships with children, as well as priests fathering children), but this information is not recorded. Registering cases of abuse in their towns should be the work of the local NGOs.
To Civil Society Take specific steps to enable children and adolescents to assume their role as individuals possessing rights, enabling them to take an active role in defense of their own rights. â&#x20AC;˘ Carry out activities of prevention in the community through campaigns and speeches, information sharing and training sessions aimed at children, adolescents, families, parents, community leaders, social promoters, teachers and all others involved in education, members of the community and law enforcement officers in order to report all situations of sexual abuse of children by representatives of the church. â&#x20AC;˘ Promote training on the subject of child abuse, specifically the problem of child abuse by Catholic priests, through local meetings with members of the neighborhood watch.
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Catholics for a Free Choice BIBLIOGRAPHY Cillero Bruñol, Miguel. Infancia, autonomía y derechos: Una cuestion de principios. Boletín de Instituto Interamericano. Nº 234. Octubre 1997, pp.1-13. Grosman, Cecilia. Derecho de Comunicación entre padres e hijos. www.infanciayjuventud.com/anterior/academic/academ12a.html Indacochea, Carlos Manuel. “Doctrina Católica y Etica de la Salud Reproductiva.” Revista Peruana de Población N° 5, Lima, 1994. Kissling, Frances. El Vaticano y las Politicas de Salud Reproductiva. Catholics for a Free Choice, 1997. Medina Cecilia. “El Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos.” Sistema Jurídico y Derechos Humanos. Jorge Mera y Cecilia Medina Ed., Escuela de Derecho Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, 1996. Nikken Pedro. Manual de Fuerzas Armadas. Rodolfo Cerdas Cruz y Rafael Nieto Loaiza, ed. San José Costa Rica: IIDH, 1994. Red de Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir. Conciencia Latinoamericana. Vol. VII N° 4. 1995. Red Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir. Conciencia Latinoamericana. Vol. XI N° 3. 1999. Valencia Corominas, Jorge. Derechos Humanos del Niño. Instituto Peruano de Derechos Humanos. Lima, Octubre 1990. Valencia Corominas, Jorge. Derechos Humanos del Niño en el Marco de la Doctrina de la Protección Integral. Ed. Radda Barnen de Suecia. Lima, Mayo de 1999.
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APPENDIX 1 Penal Code 1991 and its modification law 28251
Crime/Sentence
RAPE
Sexual abuse of minors
Acts that cause shame
Acts that cause shame in minors
Penal Code 1991 and its modification law 28251 Imprisonment not less than 4 years and not more than 8 years, Anyone who obliges another person intercourse be it vaginal, anal or by mouth or similar acts introducing objects or parts of the body in the first two orifices mentioned. The sentence will be no less than 8 and no greater than 15 years imprisonment if the victim is older than 14 years old but younger than 18 years old. (Article 170 C.P). The consent of someone younger than 14 is considered invalid (article 173): If the victim is under 7 years old the sentence is life imprisonment. If the victim is between 7 and 10 the sentence is 25-30 years imprisonment. If the victim is between 10 and 14 the sentence is 20-25 years of imprisonment. Imprisonment of no less than 3 and no more than 5 years, Anyone who causes shame to a person (article 176). When the victim is older than 14 years old but younger than 18 years old, the sentence will be no less than 4 and not greater than 6 years imprisonment. If the victim is under 7 years old, the sentence is no less than 7 years and no greater than 10 years imprisonment. If the victim is between 7 and 10 years old the sentence is no less than 5 and no greater than 8 years imprisonment. If the victim is older than 10 but less than 14 years old, the sentence is no less than 4 and no greater than 6 years imprisonment.
Source: Revisión de normas penales. Elaboración: Ma. Jennie Dador Tozzini.
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Catholics for a Free Choice APENDIX 2 Crimes against sexual freedom and the legal process
Crimes against sexual freedom and its legal process Penal type
Article Description
170 I. Rape and its different forms
171
172
173
173-A 174
Process Law 27507
Court Order Art. 135 C.P.P.
Penal action
Violence or threats to make a person have intercourse be it vaginal, anal or oral or Summary Comparecen similar acts introducing objects or parts of cia Public the body in the first two orifices arrest mentioned. It is aggravated if the victim is between 14 Summary and 18 years old. Arrest Rape when the person is unconscious or unable to resist. It is aggravated by the abuse of the profession, science or occupation. Rape of a person who suffers from some mental illness or mental condition. It is aggravated by the abuse of the profession, science or position.
Summary Arrest
Public
Summary Summary Arrest
Public
Summary
Rape of minors under 14 years old. Victim under 7, life sentence Victim between 7 and 10 years, between 25 and 30 years imprisonment. Ordinary arrest Victim between 10 and 14 years old, between 20 and 25 years imprisonment. It is aggravated by position, responsibility or family bond which would cause the child to place his or her trust in the perpetrator more easily. (e.g. Members of the clergy.) If the result is death or serious injury, the sentence is life sentence Ordinary Arrest Rape taking advantage of a situation of dependence, authority or custody or with a
Public
Public
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Catholics for a Free Choice person placed in a hospital, asylum or other similar establishment or is detained. (e.g. Children trusted to the care of members of the clergy.)
Summary Arrest
Anyone who through deception practices a sexual act with a person between 14 and 18 Summary Court years old. appearance 176 Anyone who practices deliberately the Court III. Delito sexual act or anything similar and commits Appearance contra el an act that shames the person. pudor Summary Arrest It is aggravated if the victim is between 14 and 18 years old. Arrest 176-A The active subject with no intention of having intercourse or any similar act does Court something that brings shame to a person Appearance who is under 14 years old. Summary Arrest The act is aggravated depending on the age of the victim or the position of Arrest responsibility or trust of the perpetrator, or if the act is particularly degrading. (e.g. Members of the clergy.) Source: revisi贸n de normas penales. By Ma. Jennie Dador Tozzini.
Public
175
II. seduction
Public
Public
Public
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Catholics for a Free Choice APPENDIX 3 About the organizations that produced this report CFFC is a nongovernmental organization with special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations. CFFC works in the international arena to shape and advance sexual and reproductive ethics that are based on justice, reflect a commitment to womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s well-being and respect and affirm the moral capacity of women and men to make sound decisions about their lives. Through discourse, education and advocacy, CFFC works in the United States and internationally with sister organizations throughout Latin America and partners in Europe, Africa and the world to infuse these values into public policy, community life, feminist analysis and Catholic social thinking and teaching. CFFC is also a leader in the promotion of pluralism and democratic values as a counterbalance to fundamentalist approaches to rights, population policies, gender equality and sexuality. PROMSEX is a nongovernmental feminist organization made up of professional women and men who are activists working for the promotion and defense of sexual and reproductive rights. PROMSEX firmly believes that it is possible to build an equal society with social justice as an axis for more women and men to become full citizens in Peru. It advocates that public policies and norms recognize, respect, promote and guarantee the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights as human rights.
Š 2005, Catholics for a Free Choice Catholics for a Free Choice 1436 U Street, NW, Suite 301 Washington, DC 20009 USA Tel: 1.202.986.6093 Fax: 1.202.332.7995 Email: international@catholicsforchoice.org www.catholicsforchoice.org 16