Jasmine in Lima

Walking home from a party tonight, the humid summer air of Lima smelled of jasmine. Very nice.

A morning in Comas

Some images endure such as when I saw, last week, a very old, sick man not able to disembark independently from a combi in Comas. He was accompanied by a middle age woman, probably his daughter. He sat in the first row in the back of the public transportation minivan and she lifted his head from where it rested on the back of their seat as they neared their stop. His head immediately went back down. She lifted it again and back down it went. Now, combis and micros are in a rush in Lima and people are already trying to stand before it comes to a stop so that they can jump off and the rest can be on their way. Well, this elderly man’s daughter did just that but he made no pretense of moving. He simply could not.

Some of the men on the combi took note. Four people and his daughter were needed to lower this sick man from the vehicle. It was hot and as we drove away, he just stood there holding her arm so as to keep standing. The street we were on was one of commerce and they certainly had a journey from where the combi left them. That man should have a wheelchair and, when a journey is necessary, he should have door-to-door service on a ride intended just for him and during which he sits in the front seat. Life should be more fair for those further on in years.

I was traveling with my colleague, Manolo, to interview an adolescent who recently gave birth and might have been affected by a law I am researching. Manolo, in his early 50s and involved in organizing trans groups in Comas, had also accompanied me the last time I’d been up that way as it probably isn’t the most safe place for una gringa to be traveling alone when she doesn’t know where she’s going.

As I describe in Getting more involved, the last Congress passed a stupid law that criminalizes all sexual activity with and between people under 18 years of age. Despite that Peru’s civil code says that people ages 16 and older can wed, the penal code states that sex with or between minors is rape. If one of the two happens to be over 18, that person faces no more than 25 and no less than 30 years in prison. The first three to be incarcerated under this law to promote more protection for sexual violence victims were—surprise, surprise—women. They were 18 or older and their partners under 18 years of age.

This law is dangerous for adolescent sexual and reproductive health in Peru. In conjunction with another law obliging medical providers to report to law enforcement authorities any evidence of violence—from bullet wounds to rape—on their patients, this law means that doctors must denounce the supposed rape that got a pregnant adolescent pregnant, even if she consented and even if, for example, the father is her husband. One Lima public hospital was going beyond that stated in the law and retaining adolescents for days after they should have been discharged. The pretense was to wait for the prosecutor to come and register her—fill out a form. One was retained 15 days after she was medically fit to be discharged. These retentions were problematic for, in addition to violating their right to liberty and security of person, many of these adolescents were not giving birth for the first time and had to get back to their other children.

Manolo waited for me in the nearby house of a community organizer while I walked over to interview the adolescent. Her grandmother-in-law greeted me at the door and invited me through the front room that is a store with soda for sale, and into a room with some chairs, a table, and a bed with an infant on it. Rocio, 15 years old, had just given birth two months before. Her grandmother-in-law proudly stated that Rocio doesn’t let anyone wash and care for the baby, only her. I explained why I was there and started to ask her questions: what hospital she went to; when did she arrive and when did she leave; what was her experience; was she retained; was her partner there; did anyone say anything to him; what is the word on the street about this law amongst adolescents? Five or six other children who are Rocio’s husband’s siblings and cousins, as well as Rocio’s pregnant 19-year-old sister-in-law, sat with us as I interviewed her.

Rocio had heard about this law from adolescent-mother peers of hers, and it made her and her “husband” (as she referred to him but any marriage between them cannot be legal in Peru until she turns 16) nervous about giving birth in the hospital because they didn’t want their baby taken away. The fear generated by this law presumably generated this false rumor, as the law does not serve for the State to gain guardianship of the newborn. “Just because we’re young doesn’t mean we don’t want to raise our own babies,” Rocio said. Her friend had escaped from the hospital after she’d given birth for fear she’d be put in a home without her child. But Rocio and her 21-year-old husband thought a hospital the safest route to go so went anyway. A social worker spoke with him at some point but, as is the case in the majority of hospitals, their hospital was not strictly implementing this law. They discharged Rocio only after her mother came and pledged that Rocio and the baby are under her guardianship. But Rocio lives with her husband and his family.

Rocio confirmed our suspicions that that this law can drive pregnant adolescents away from safe, supervised birthing conditions and perinatal care. Such an effect doesn’t indicate smart legislation for a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Latin America.

“We didn’t learn anything about sex in school,” Rocio continued. “When someone would try to bring it up with the teacher, they would get in trouble.” And now she is a fifteen-year-old fulltime mom.

Manolo and I descended down from Collique and back towards Comas where we disembarked from a combi once again. In a beat up 1980s Oldsmobile, we ascended towards the house of China, one of the founders of Comas’ LGBT group. Manolo had a box of condoms to deliver to her. The Collique community organizer had asked for them, saying she desperately needed them, but Manolo explained they were already promised to someone else, but to call him and he’d get her a box soon.

Sitting in her living room, China expressed contentment about the condom brand. There are three kinds—with white, black, or green wrappers. The white, which Manolo had brought her, are from the U.S. and are the best, she said. The condoms with black wrappers are distributed by the Ministry of Health at monthly or bi-monthly check-ups. I assumed the check-ups to which she referred were those that I believe are required for sex workers so as to be periodically tested for STDs.

Peruvian trans sex workers sometimes make their way to Italy to work temporarily or permanently. I would have thought Spain a more likely choice due to common language. But Italians are apparently more open than Spaniards to transactional sex with transgender persons from Peru. Manolo and China spoke about someone they know about to make the trip overseas.

China told Manolo about the most recent of their periodic hair dressing events in the neighborhood, to offer free haircuts and, in the meantime, tell community members about their work. These events are very popular and there is a steady line of clients for the entire duration. February is the month of carnival, when people throw water balloons and the like at one another. Some people, however, went overboard with the hairdressers and used Carnival as a pretense to be flat out violent.