Peru fires 328 teachers for sexual violence following abuse scandal

Peruvian Education Minister Morgan Quero. Photo: gob.pe

July 6, 2024 Hour: 18:01

Peruvian Education Minister Morgan Quero reported on Saturday that 207 teachers from the Lima metropolitan area and 121 teachers from Condorcanqui province in the Amazon region, where hundreds of cases of abuse by teachers were uncovered weeks ago, had been fired.

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The high-ranking official announced the measure to put an end to cases of sexual violence against students. A month ago, the newspaper La República reported on hundreds of complaints from teachers who had accused primary and secondary school students of sexual abuse.

The incidents occurred between 2010 and 2024 in Condorcanqui, one of the seven provinces of the Amazonas department in northeastern Peru. It was described in detail that the attackers even infected children of the Awajún ethnic group with HIV.

“We have blocked all teachers against whom there are complaints in the Amazon region so that they cannot be hired in another local educational administration unit (UGEL). I guarantee that no teachers against whom there are complaints of harassment or sexual violence will work in Condorcanqui,” Quero told RPP radio.

Quero pointed out that three new student dormitories are to be built in Condorcanqui and that the Ministry of Education will continue to work to improve the conditions in these dormitories and to ensure that reprehensible incidents that have gone unpunished for years do not recur.

The Minister of Education pointed out that in the greater Lima area there are teachers in private schools who have been convicted of rape, terrorism and murder and who will not return to the classroom. He specified that of the total cases in which teachers have been fired, 227 were for sexual assault and 27 for terrorism.

In this sense, the Executive announced that it had published on Saturday a ministerial resolution intended to contribute to the “frontal fight to ruthlessly act against rapists disguised as teachers and to exclude once and for all those who have carried out a form of absolutely heinous violence against our children.”

The allegations of abuse gained widespread attention in Peru, because when the minister was questioned by the media about the case, he said that they would “work on a solution to resolve the situation,” even though it was “a cultural practice.”

These statements were rejected by several human rights organizations after the Minister for Women and Vulnerable Populations, Angela Hernandez, wanted to support Minister Quero.

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