More than 3,400 women went missing in Peru between January and April this year.
The country’s ombudsman office said this on Saturday. In the first four months of 2023, 3,406 women were reported missing, according to the office’s report titled ‘What happened to them?’ Only 1,902 of them have been found, and 1,504 are still missing, reports AFP.
Isabel Ortiz, the deputy ombudsman, said the disappearances should be viewed as a situation of imminent danger in Peru. ‘The state is not taking enough steps to prevent such incidents in the Andean country of 33 million people,’ he said.
More than 5,380 women, mostly girls, and adolescents, were reported missing in 2022. This number is 9.7 percent less than in 2021.
According to various feminist NGOs, the police and the prosecutor’s office do not adequately investigate many cases because they believe the women fled voluntarily.
Also read: Sudan declares UN envoy ‘persona non grata’
