Former Peruvian soldiers jailed for raping teenagers during the country’s armed conflict

Lima, Peru — On Wednesday, ten men in Peru were found guilty of raping nine teenagers while serving in the military during the country’s armed conflict decades ago.

Judge Marco Angulo of Peru’s First Supreme Criminal Court sentenced the former soldiers to prison terms ranging from six to 12 years. Authorities accused them of raping the teenagers in the Andean municipality of Manta between 1984 and 1994.

Angulo said that the lack of constitutional guarantees in the community during the armed conflict “made the possibility of reporting sexual abuse marginal and unattractive.” He added that victims lived amid social rejection that forced them to “assert their claims to the rights violated in absolute helplessness.”

“The decision taken is a message aimed at respecting people’s fundamental rights even in the most serious social crises facing the country,” said Angulo.

After the verdict, prosecutors who called for harsher sentences and lawyers for the victims said they would re-examine Angulo’s decision to decide whether to appeal it.

The war between the Peruvian military and the communist Shining Path insurgents, which raged from 1980 to 2000, left an estimated 70,000 dead, the majority of them in rural areas.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office began investigating the youths’ allegations in 2004, after a special commission investigating the armed conflict published a report which, among other abuses suffered by civilians in Manta, stated that “sexual violence was a persistent and everyday practice” and that “the army personnel stationed at local military bases were mainly responsible”.

Angulo said Wednesday that the rapes sometimes occurred when the teenagers entered their homes after being threatened with guns, or after they were arrested and charged without evidence that they belonged to the Shining Path. One victim reported that a soldier had scarred her hip with a knife used to cut her underwear.