Textile Details

'Violar es un crimen / Rape is a crime', MH, Mujeres Creativas workshop. (Photo: Martin Melaugh)

This arpillera, a replica of the original made in a Mujeras Creativas workshop in 1985, depicts a protest by five courageous Lima women, denouncing the rape and forced resettlement of Ayacucho village women, during the civil war in Peru from 1980 to 2000. During this violent period, over 600,000 people were displaced as a result of the armed conflict between the government, self defence groups and insurgent forces of the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Resistance Movement.

Maria, who created this piece, remembers: “In October 1985 many people were killed in Ayacucho and women were raped, but nobody protested. Two groups of us decided to demonstrate in front of Comando Conjunto (Joint Military Command) in Lima since the people … living in Ayacucho felt too vulnerable to do so …. We displayed a banner … ‘Rape is a crime’. .. Five of us decided to make an arpillera of our action to show we do not condone such brutality.”

A report by the International Centre for Transitional Justice (2013) states that 2,591 women have been registered by the National Reparations Council (NRC) as victims of rape and sexually violent incidents, perpetrated during the civil war.

https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ_Report_Peru_Reparations_2013.pdf

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