Improving living conditions
Let's start with a general state of affairs. Certainly, the crisis of the Covid-19 is going to leave very deep marks in the economic reality of the country and has unfortunately reinforced the exclusions, but until then Peru was a country that was getting better and better if we believe the figures. Without ever succeeding in filling the gaps completely. The fertility is for example of 2 children per woman for several years, very far from the large families of the previous generations. Infant mortality is around 14 ‰. Life expectancy shows an average of 77.2 years. Although still far from the levels of developed countries, these figures mark a positive trend of a steady improvement in living conditions. The cultural level of the population has increased significantly, from an illiteracy rate of 40% in 1961 to 5.2% in 2021.
Not everyone is equal and it is access to services that still distinguishes some Peruvians from others. Drinking water is available in 90.6% of homes in 2021. If mobile telephony has exploded with a coverage of more than 90% of the territory, the Internet still struggles and only 48.7% of the population count with an access in 2021
High density along the coast and in the city
Today, out of more than 33 million inhabitants, almost half live in and around Lima. The costa, which accounts for 58% of the total population, has an average of 50 to 90 inhabitants/km² in the coastal cities. Apart from Lima, 26 cities have more than 100,000 inhabitants and account for 60% of the total population. The geography along the coast also helps to connect the key cities along the Pan-American Highway: Chimbote, Trujillo, Chiclayo, Piura and Tumbes in the north or Ica, Arequipa, Tacna in the south. In these cities, life is bustling, the horns never sleep and the lifestyle is accelerated. They grow fast, in a rather chaotic way and give the impression of expanding faster than any urbanization plan. The Peruvian coast is indeed the economic and political center of Peru. Behind these more populated cities, we must also see a more modern way of life: often long trips between home and work, inhabitants more connected to technologies and to the great consumption in general, "malls" in the American way outside the cities. An immense bustle, an often epic disorder between buildings of a gleaming modernity and street vendors posted at the entrance, it is all that defines this modern and immensely majority Peru
However, be careful, this mirror has created a lot of disappointed people and city dwellers who are struggling to find their place. Lima in particular is surrounded on the hills which go up little by little towards the Andes of numerous very precarious popular districts and of what one calls its "asentamientos humanos". Behind this denomination, we find migrants, mostly from the sierra and more rarely from the selva, sometimes settled for more than a generation, who have built on the land they found a few small houses that have become over the years full-fledged neighborhoods that are gradually connected to running water, sewerage, electricity.. These basic services of first necessity are not present everywhere and the phenomenon of invasion of grounds and informal constructions is perpetuated with the following generations which go up more and more on the stone hills. We often see along these hills huge stairs that provide a path for those who live here. This phenomenon of precarious peripheries is observed in almost all the big cities of the sierra: Cusco, Ayacucho, Arequipa. The countryside is becoming desertified, the migrants do not go any more to Lima but settle down near the nearest big city reproducing a very similar pattern.
A multi-cultural and multi-ethnic specificity
The specificity of the Peruvian population is its plurality. Originating from Europe, Asia and Africa, the numerous migrants of the different periods of history have indeed strongly favoured the mixing of the Peruvian people. As early as the 16th century, the process of colonization led to the mixing of the various racial components. In the 19th century, 80,000 Chinese arrived in Peru, in particular to work in the sugar cane plantations. Today, almost half of the Peruvians are of mixed race, half Amerindian and half European. In some regions of Peru, particularly on the coast, there are many mestizos of African descent. Finally, the indigenous people are mainly located in the Andean regions, and strong minorities, such as the Ashaninkas or the Aguarunas, are still present in Amazonia. This mixture is mainly found in the cuisine, which is a strong popular cement where the mixture of origins is best expressed.
The
official languages of Peru are Spanish and Quechua. Spanish is spoken by practically the entire population. Nearly 4 million Peruvians, or 13.6% of the population, still speak Quechua, mainly in the Andes. 500,000 people in the Puno region speak Aymara, a language they share with the Bolivians. But there are nearly 50 regional languages, native languages that have survived mainly in the jungle. About 5 million Peruvians have a language other than Spanish as their mother tongue. To date, Peru has 51 indigenous peoples from the Amazon and 4 from the Andes, speaking 48 native languages. There is a very interesting database of indigenous peoples (BDPI) of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, an online platform that lists indigenous peoples at the national level. The native languages, long put aside, are progressively valued as well as the dual education; in October 2019 a student of the San Marcos University, humanist and founded in 1551, defended her thesis in Quechua. The public TV channel, TV Peru, also offers programmes in the native language. The arrival in power of Pedro Castillo, a native of the northern Andes and himself a teacher deeply attached to his cultural identity, should only reinforce this state of affairs.
Indigenous peoples under threat
Behind this facade of costa, sierra and selva , which is often put forward, even in advertising, there is a lot of marketing, but still too little real political will to fill the gaps. These three realities, these three ways of life are very distinct and beyond the postcard images of natives proud of their native culture, we must recognize that they are very little integrated into the landscape. The diagnosis is even worse when we talk about indigenous peoples. There are 7,000 of them in total, between members of isolated indigenous peoples, present for centuries and in isolation to protect themselves, and those who have established contacts scattered throughout the Amazonian forests in the regions of Cusco, Madre de Dios, Ucayali, Loreto and Huanuco. "Indigenous peoples face violence with a thousand faces: on the one hand, institutional abandonment and denial of their rights; on the other, violence ranging from threats, intimidation and police harassment, through arrests and imprisonment, to aggression, evictions from communities, sexual violence, kidnappings and murders of indigenous leaders," Mariana Ugarte, head of Manos Unidas projects in Peru, told the Petit Journal in Lima. "Behind these deaths are illegal logging, land trafficking, mining, agribusiness, drug trafficking, but the framework that hosts all this is the same: an extractivist economic model, the centralism of state policies and structural racism. In the Peruvian Amazon alone, during the pandemic, there were a dozen murders of indigenous leaders according to data from the Institute of the Common Good. The most affected community has undoubtedly been the Kakataibo, with four murdered leaders, whose main cause has been drug trafficking. In January 2020, the Kakataibo leader, Arbidio Meléndez, informed the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders of the threats his people were receiving. Arbidio was killed two months later near his community. Without legal protection and with the state occupied elsewhere by the pandemic, illegal economies flourish and violence increases in these remote jungle areas. A North and South Kakataibo Indigenous Reserve has just been created, located in the regions of Loreto, Ucayali and Huánuco, with nearly 150,000 hectares of forest, for the protection of the rights, habitat and conditions that ensure the existence and integrity of isolated and first contact indigenous peoples (PIACI). To date, Peru has 7 indigenous and territorial reserves, located in the regions of Madre de Dios, Cusco, Huánuco, Loreto and Ucayali, which total almost 4 million hectares of the Peruvian Amazon, or 3.1% of the national territory.
The specific case of Venezuelan migrants
Even if you are just passing through, it is likely that you are aware of the massive migration of Venezuelans to Peru. They are fleeing the regime of Nicolas Maduro and are looking for new work opportunities. The figures are constantly changing, but they would be around 1.2 million established on Peruvian soil in 2021, the second most popular host country after Colombia. Less than half of them have a temporary residence permit and therefore a work permit. Many others are not legally registered. In the streets, many of them sell coffee, cakes and local dishes. They are also numerous to get on the buses to ask for a gesture. Most of them work in services: taxi and VTC drivers, deliveries, restaurants, hotels, hairdressers... They have the reputation of being friendly and smiling. You may be able to detect a slightly different accent. The Peruvians do not always look favourably on this cheap labour force which comes to compete with them, not to mention an increase in street violence and aggressions. More vulnerable, their daily life is often very precarious and they suffer from all kinds of abuses due to the fragility of their situation.
Since June 22, 2019, Peru requires a visa to Venezuelan citizens which has considerably reduced the migratory flow, but the main border located in Aguas Verdes, Tumbes, still receives many requests.
