FY 2022 Congressional Budget Justification
Example: Reports of gender-based violence in Peru increased 130% in 2020 during the pandemic crisis.39 In San Juan de Lurigancho, an impoverished neighborhood of metropolitan Lima, local public and private institutions have struggled to institutionalize and enforce effective protections for women. IAF grantee Asociación Peruana Mujer y Familia (APMF), a women’s association, works with grassroots organizations, community members, and public officials to combat and prevent violence and to secure survivors access to basic protections, care, and remedies against aggressors. APMF trained police officers from 11 police stations on responding effectively to intrafamilial violence. They also trained 639 neighborhood group members to accompany women experiencing gender-based violence. Through their door-to-door outreach program, they reached 22,245 families with information about what to do in cases of intrafamilial violence. They also launched Aló Mujer, the first telemedicine service for Peruvian and migrant women in Metropolitan Lima, attending 204 calls with trained professional health assistance and legal counseling. Finally, APMF gave scholarships to at-risk youth to study in technology education centers, to set them on a better path.
Children and Youth Children and youth (under age 25) represent approximately 40% of the population40 and suffer disproportionately from poverty in Latin America.41 The poverty incidence for children under 14 years old (47.2%) is higher than that of any other age group, and over triple the poverty incidence for adults 65 years and over.42 Children and adolescents often lack adequate nutrition and access to job skills, health care, quality education, and the training to become fully productive adults. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated many of these issues.43 The unemployment rate for 15–24 year‐olds in Latin America and the Caribbean has reached the highest level recorded since the 1990s, at nearly 20%.44 About one in four youths in Latin America neither works nor studies, creating significant risks of recruitment into transnational criminal organizations and armed groups.45 For young people of working age, a major challenge is access to training, education, and professional or business experience that better prepares them for the future. At least 51% of IAF grants directly involve and benefit young people. Many grantees are working to create employment opportunities and teach children and adolescents skills that match the labor market and help them become engaged in community life.
28
