As part of the Integrated Programme to Fight Domestic and Sexual Violence (PILVFS), which the Ministry of Women and Social Development implements in collaboration with Belgian cooperation, the issues of decentralisation and care for the target groups is especially relevant. One of the main challenges of the programme is indeed to reach as many people as possible in extended areas with poor access and only basic means of transport.

Moreover, it is obvious that the topic of the programme itself is delicate and that it is culturally not accepted to deal with it. The target group for the majority consists of women and children who are the victims of moral and/or physical violence and who live in poverty in regions that are difficult to reach (for persons and goods but also for health care and education) and where the dread of terror still reigns - Ayacucho, Apurímac, Huancavelica.

In view of decentralisation and aid to victims, PILVFS joins the initiative of the Ministry of Women and Social Development in creating and organising Emergency Centres for Women (CEM). These aid centres are the only link of the Ministry to ensure psychological and legal assistance outside Lima. Regardless of their name, they are not exclusively dedicated to women, even though women are the main beneficiaries (in 2008, at the Emergency Centre for Women of the city of Ayacucho, out of 500 consultations, 427 were for women and 141 people were between 36 and 45 years).

The Emergency Centres for Women were created in 2001; today there are 49 such centres in Peru, of which there are 10 spread over the intervention areas of Belgian cooperation, namely Ayacucho, Apurímac and Huancavelica. Each Emergency Centre is organised in the same way and provides the same services: Admission, social assistance, psychological aid and legal services.

Moreover, each has a promotion and communication service, which promotes the Emergency Centre locally through workshops and conferences with key actors and through the distributions of posters and other information supports, among other things. The promotion service must also lobby to make issues of domestic and sexual violence known and recognized and make them part of political agendas.

The cases that the workers at the Emergency Centres for Women are confronted with are often sensitive and morally hard to deal with, but the professionalism that they show and their dedication and motivation help them to overcome this. According to them it is much harder though to deal with the absence of recognition and the lack of essential human and financial resources.

• Peru
• Decentralisation
• Gender equality