In the office’s report — titled “What happened to them?” — the first four months of 2023 saw 3,406 complaints of missing women filed. Only 1,902 were found, and 1,504 are still missing, the report said.

Peru’s “situation... as to disappearances would be classified as a situation of imminent danger,” said Isabel Ortiz, deputy for the Ombudsman.

“The State is not taking action to prevent these types of events,” which happen each year in the Andean nation of 33 million people, she said.

LIMA: More than 3,400 women were reported missing in Peru between January and April this year, the Ombudsman’s Office reported on Saturday.

“The State is not making the issue of disappearances (mostly kidnappings and abductions) a priority agenda item.” In 2022, more than 5,380 women, mostly girls and teenagers, were reported missing, a figure 9.7 per cent lower than in 2021.

According to various feminist NGOs, the police and the prosecutor’s office do not sufficiently investigate many cases because they believe that the women fled voluntarily.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2023