Girl’s crime sparks debate on death penalty for abusers in Peru

The president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, asked to open the debate on the application of the death penalty
for child rapists, after the recent murder of a minor in Lima, which has shocked public opinion.

During an official ceremony at the Las Palmas Air Base in Lima, Boluarte said that “It is time to open the debate on the death penalty for child rapists”considering that “guys like these cannot walk free in the streets.”

(Read also: Life imprisonment and death penalty for child abusers and murderers are not possible: minjusticia)

The head of state made a callStrengthen the actions of the National Police to protect children as they are the most vulnerable to these types of attacks.

The death penalty is not applicable in Peru since the 1979 Constitution came into force.which only allows it for treason, and after the country ratified in 1978 the American Convention on Human Rights that restricts that punishment.

Death of a girl shakes Peru

The Peruvian president requested a minute of silence for the murder of a teenager in Lima, whose body was found by her family in the house of an alleged security guard of an informal settlement in the district of Pachacámac, in the south of the capital.

The minor had disappeared from her house, but The parents received a call from a person who had supposedly found her and said that he would take her to the Villa María del Triunfo district police station, according to the América Noticias channel report.

As the hours passed, she did not appear at the police headquarters and the family accelerated their search with the geolocation of their mobile phone. In that way, They arrived at a clearing in the Lúcumo settlement of Pachacámac, where they located the remains of the minor, apparently strangled, in a house.

The suspect identified as Gerson Alexander Juárez Tapia, 26, said he was a guard at the place and, after being interrogated, apparently confessed to having been the author of the minor’s murder.

However, a local resident declared The Police recorded the arrival of a motorcycle taxi with two men at that house in the early morning Sunday.

A mob of neighbors attacked the confessed murderer, who had to be admitted to a hospitalaccording to the newspaper El Comercio.

The Prosecutor’s Office Specialized in Violence against Women and Members of the Family Group of the Lurín district has begun the preliminary investigation after finding the 12-year-old minor dead. Meantime, The Peruvian justice system imposed preliminary detention on the accused criminal

The Ombudsman’s Office reported that, From January to October 2024, 5,518 alert notes were registered for missing women, most of them minors, and 133 femicides were committed in that same period.

(Also read: Florida law that allows the death penalty for child rapists will go into effect in October)